Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Debate between Lord Empey and Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard

Report stage
Wednesday 8th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, my Amendment 45 arises from an exchange in the other place last week with the Minister, Sir Chris Bryant. Members will be aware that Northern Ireland’s situation is different in so far as, for goods, it is covered by the Windsor Framework. Therefore, EU quotas on steel obviously apply. The issue is that we have the preposterous situation of having quotas of steel flowing from one part of the United Kingdom to the other. These two regimes are clashing.

The Minister in the other place indicated that HMRC is

“taking steps to confirm the arrangements with industry”.

Bearing in mind that this was happening with about 36 hours’ notice, it was a huge challenge for businesses and so on to get their heads around it. He went on to say:

“The Government will continue to provide guidance and support to traders moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland through the trader support service”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/6/26; col. 764.]


That is another example of why we do not have a free internal market within the United Kingdom. Can the Minister confirm whether both these matters have taken place: has HMRC taken the steps to confirm arrangements with industry, and is the Trader Support Service providing that guidance? It was not available last week, which is why I tabled this amendment.

The other issue arising is speciality steels, because of the United Kingdom’s current limited ability to produce them and because some firms which intend to produce them are not actually doing so. I will give the Minister an example of our concerns. If a European company has a branch in our jurisdiction in Northern Ireland—for instance, Harland & Wolff—and has access under its quota arrangements to speciality steel for, say, the defence sector, which the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, mentioned and which is a particular issue in my mind, and it bids for defence work that will require a significant amount of speciality steels, those steels may not be able to be sourced within the United Kingdom. Our anxiety, therefore, is that competitiveness, price and other things could create difficulties.

I fully understand the rationale for having quotas, because there is huge surplus capacity throughout the rest of the world. We understand that that has to be managed but, given that we cannot necessarily get the steels from within the United Kingdom, can the Minister give an assurance that those steels will be available, that the quotas are adequate—whatever we say about having them in the first place—and that there is sufficient headroom to ensure that companies’ competitiveness will not be significantly damaged by the unavailability of those products within the United Kingdom?

[Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from my noble friend Lord Empey and will speak to the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, in Amendment 15, which unfortunately does not cover the specific circumstances of Northern Ireland. I support Amendment 15, but my noble friend’s amendment goes further to, I hope, give protection to Northern Ireland.

The UK introduced a new steel trade measure on 1 July—