Steel Industry

Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, the Round Oak Steelworks was a steel production plant in Brierley Hill, West Midlands, close to where I grew up. Many of my classmates’ fathers worked there, meaning that I was often asked as a child, “Can we come round yours to play? My dad’s on nights?”—because my dad did not work nights. During the Industrial Revolution, the majority of ironmaking in the world was carried out within 20 miles of Round Oak. At its peak, as in Scunthorpe now, thousands of people were employed at the works. The steelworks were the first in the United Kingdom to be converted to natural gas, which was supplied from the North Sea. The works were nationalised in 1951, privatised in 1953 and nationalised again in 1967, although the private firm Tube Investments continued to manage part of the operations at the site. The works went through other ownership in later years. The steelworks finally closed in December 1982, making the remaining 1,300 workers redundant. Gone were not only the jobs making steel but all the ancillary work that went with it, supplying goods and services to Round Oak. That provided work to thousands more local people. With it, went the social network and community fabric of the sort that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to in Corby and my noble friend Lord Reid so eloquently spoke about in Glasgow.

After the closure at Round Oak, unemployment rates locally reached 25%, which was shocking, even for the early 1980s. I am therefore pleased to support our Government’s efforts in this Bill to preserve steel production in Scunthorpe and the once-proud industry in our country and jobs, and to try to avoid the devastating and long-lasting effects of mass local job losses—and with it the sense of community and support that existed where I grew up, and no doubt exists in Scunthorpe, which has a similarly long history of steel-making.