Leaving the EU: Airbus Risk Assessment

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will know that I spend time travelling around the world to encourage overseas investors to invest in our country and our economy. One of the reasons why they choose to do so is that we are a place of skills and ingenuity. We are also a place from which it is possible to export around the world, and we want to be able to maintain that. That is my purpose.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents work in Newport and in Filton. I reiterate to the Minister that the Government’s failure to address the issues that Airbus raised about Brexit mean uncertain times for the workforce, and that includes the 500-plus apprenticeships that have been offered over the last five years in Wales. This is about jobs for our young people.

[Greg Clark]

I am glad that the hon. Lady refers to the 500 apprenticeships because, as she will acknowledge, the sector has prospered as never before during the last few years, during which we have had a fantastic programme of joint investment in skills and in the technology of the future. That has been this Government’s deliberate policy. Through the industrial strategy, we are taking that forward, and I am determined that we will be able to create markets around the world—including the European Union—for those products to be exported to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for green energy, as he knows, and I am proud of our achievements. Since 2010, we have quadrupled the proportion of our electricity that comes from renewable sources. However, as the hon. Gentleman understands from being on the Select Committee, we also have a responsibility to minimise the impact on consumers’ bills. The Swansea proposal was very much more expensive—more than twice as expensive—as the Hinkley nuclear power station, for example. As I said, though, we are in discussions with our colleagues in the Welsh Government. I do not want to close the door on something if it is possible to find a way to justify it as being affordable to consumers.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I, too, say to the Minister that making a decision on the Swansea bay tidal lagoon is important for Wales as a whole. There is huge potential for future lagoons around Newport following the Swansea pathfinder. It is really important that we do not pass up these opportunities.

Sector Deal for Steel

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on securing the debate. I fully support the excellent case that he made for a steel sector deal. He rightly reiterated the policy asks and the fact that speed is of the essence. I wholeheartedly agree with that. My constituency is just down the M4 from his, and the social importance of steel is crucial to communities in my constituency too. Hundreds of people rely directly or indirectly—there are three or more jobs in the local economy for every steel job—on the steel industry. These are good jobs—skilled and relatively well paid jobs—in parts of the country, such as Wales, where that is not always the case. There is huge pride in producing steel. In areas such as mine, there is a real passion for and commitment to the steel industry, which is why all of us in the Chamber have spoken in many debates over the past few years calling on the UK Government to take more action to save our industry. However, on issues such as energy costs, those calls, as my hon. Friend said, have sadly gone unheeded up to now.

During these very hard times for steel, we should recognise, as my hon. Friend said, that the workforce, with their unions, have made huge sacrifices and done all they can to help our industry—most recently, through the painful changes to pensions. Let me also mention, as a Welsh Member of Parliament, the Welsh Government, who have done all they can with the powers and tools that they have in Wales to help. That includes the active work of Ministers such as Ken Skates, the Welsh Assembly Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport, who has supported the industry through Welsh public sector infrastructure and construction projects.

However, we do need more UK Government action, and faster. It is true that we have had warm words, but we need more action. The steel sector deal proposal has been put together by the existing six steel companies in the UK, coming together with the unions to look at ways of addressing the challenges collectively. Those individual companies have made specific commitments on jobs, investment, expanded capacity and an increase in innovation activity within the sector.

Some of the companies are in my constituency. There are Tata’s plants at Llanwern and Orb and the relatively new entrant Liberty, which is expanding fast. Those two companies were among the six involved in drawing up the steel sector deal proposal. With Tata’s Llanwern Zodiac plant in Newport East, the investment by the company in the auto-finishing line, and Orb’s electrical steel capabilities, there is a real opportunity for the UK to establish itself as one of the foremost suppliers of steel to the automotive industry, especially for electric cars. We therefore welcome the Government’s automotive sector deal conversations and their ambition to increase domestic content to 50% in British-made vehicles, but we in Newport are acutely aware that we need a thriving, competitive steel industry to do that, which is why a sector deal for steel is needed.

The GFG Alliance, which owns Liberty Steel, which also has a base in Newport East, has announced plans to create a total of 5 million tonnes of low-carbon steelmaking capacity during the next five years as part of a drive to develop a green and competitive future for manufacturing in the UK. That would equate to half the steel made in Britain at present. Currently, the UK exports more of its scrap for processing abroad than any other developed country, so Liberty’s aim is to recycle a large proportion of the 7.2 million tonnes a year of scrap steel here in the UK. That low-carbon secondary steel production would displace much of the 7 million tonnes a year of raw steel currently imported and is a huge opportunity for the country to drive clean growth by making low-carbon steel at home.

There is great ambition in the steel industry in my constituency, despite all the difficulties faced by the steel sector in recent years. However, although demand for steel is up, production has fallen and many of the underlying causes of the recent crisis are still there. Tata and Liberty in my constituency show what ambition is out there, but we need Government interventions to ensure that our innovation can keep pace with our international competitors. That is why we repeat and repeat the policy asks. That means Government action on energy prices—the most important intervention that the Government could make. As my hon. Friend said, UK plants currently pay more than 50% more than their German and French counterparts. It means action on the business rate regime. These companies are investing and want to invest more. They want to work with the Government to unlock further investment. For the steel industry to flourish, they need a route to market that includes things such as UK steel for infrastructure projects, help with access to finance and a future steel challenge fund. Addressing the barriers through a sector deal will help to unlock investment. I mentioned this a moment ago, but we also need to continue to see more commitment on procurement, including in subsidised energy projects. As a south Walian Member, I point out that we are still awaiting a decision on the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon.

[Stephen Kinnock]

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that, given that the Hendry review was completed almost a year ago, it is almost impossible to understand why we are still waiting for the Government’s answer on the recommendations in that review, which are vital to the south Wales economy, not least the steel industry?

[Jessica Morden]

My hon. Friend is right to make that point. The project has huge potential, not only for Swansea bay but for other areas of Wales—there is the potential for tidal lagoons in places such as Newport—so we must keep pressing the Government. We do not understand why the decision has not been made yet.

There has obviously been disappointment in the steel sector that its own proposal for a sector deal was not among those being talked about, especially given that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) said, discussions have been ongoing since the crisis in 2015-16, when the Secretary of State invited the sector to work with him to come up with a vision for a modern, sustainable steel sector. We look forward to hearing from the Minister today about what she can do to work with the industry and all of us to ensure a sustainable future for steel.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

Productivity is a crucial part of our industrial strategy, as are good employee communications and practice. The union between Matthew Taylor’s report and the industrial strategy will focus very much on improving productivity as the basis of improving people’s earning power.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

3. To ask the Secretary of State what steps he is taking to increase average weekly earnings.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James)]

We need an economy that works for everyone. We are developing the industrial strategy to improve living standards and boost earning power, so that everyone in our country can share the benefits of our economic success.

[Jessica Morden]

With average weekly real earnings lower than they were in 2007 and with the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying that the flatlining of real wages is unprecedented since at least the end of the second world war, does the Minister accept that Britain needs a pay rise? What are Ministers doing to tackle this?

[Margot James]

That is one of the reasons why the Government have introduced the national living wage, as a means of boosting the earning power of people at the lower end of the pay scale. I acknowledge that average earnings have been static over the past year, but it is important to recognise that people on the national minimum wage were given a 4% pay rise in April this year, and 1.3 million of those people have been taken out of paying income tax altogether.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)]

We indeed welcome that. Medicines manufacturing is key, which is why we have launched a £146 million medicines manufacturing programme under the industry strategy challenge fund. That includes £12 million for expansion of the cell and gene therapy manufacturing centre. The other centres, a vaccines centre, a medicines manufacturing innovation centre and three advanced therapy centres, are open to competition and could be located anywhere in the country, including in the east of England.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

T5. This week’s electricity grid connection deal would make the Cardiff tidal lagoon the UK’s largest renewable energy project, generating some of the cheapest power in the country, and it would be a big boost to Newport, but its potential can be realised only with the Government first backing the pilot project in Swansea bay. When will that happen?

[Greg Clark]

I do understand the great interest in this matter. As the House knows, I am enthusiastic about renewable technologies, but we have an important responsibility to make sure that they proceed at a price that is reasonable for consumers, who pay through their bills. That is being assessed and I will report to the House when that assessment is finished.

Tesco House, Cardiff: Job Losses

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I think that these job losses are the latest in a string of cuts implemented as part of the so-called turnaround plan by Dave Lewis, the group chief executive, who joined Tesco in autumn 2015.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend knows, job losses on this scale will be felt keenly not just in Cardiff but across south Wales. A constituent of mine who works for Tesco contacted me, saying:

“I believe that what they (Tesco) have told the press is incorrect as I know they are outsourcing parts of their business to a site in Bury.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that the company should be questioned on that, too?

[Anna McMorrin]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that it should be questioned on that, and I will address the issue later in my speech.

In his first year in charge as the group chief executive, Mr Lewis axed nearly 5,000 head office staff and UK store management jobs, as well as more than 4,000 roles overseas and at the group’s banking division. More than 2,500 jobs were lost with the closure of 48 so-called underperforming Tesco stores, and 3,000 jobs were put at risk in April when the chain cut night shifts for shelf stackers in some of its biggest supermarkets.