Steel Industry

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and then repeated by my noble friend Lord Moylan hangs in the air of your Lordships’ Chamber, brooding and unanswered: what is the justification for having a permanent, open-ended commitment to subsidise domestic production? We have heard a perfectly reasonable case that we need lots of steel and security of supply. I agree with that, but the way to have security of supply, whether of steel or anything else, is to source from the widest possible variety of sources so that you are not subject to a localised shock or disruption, which might as easily happen in your own territory as anywhere else.

That is exactly where we are with steel. There is no foreign country that accounts for more than 15% of our total imports—not our total use, our total imports. It is an extremely comfortable position. There is a very widespread view, I think, outside this Chamber that we are somehow dependent on China or other unfriendly autocracies. We heard it from the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, a moment ago, but which countries actually are our chief suppliers? The first is Germany, the second is Spain, the third is the Netherlands and the fourth is Belgium. If, in some bizarre world, we were blockaded by the EU, we would still be able to import from Algeria, Turkey, Vietnam and South Korea before we got to China, which accounts for only 7% of our imports. We need to be realistic about the numbers.

If, for whatever reason, we decide that, despite that, we must have some kind of domestic production capacity at whatever cost then the easiest way to ensure that is to make our industries competitive by no longer imposing on them the most expensive energy costs in the developed world. We seem to have forgotten that actions have consequences. We pass resolutions and laws, we make decisions that make us feel warm and comfortable about net zero, such as not allowing the coking coal mine in Cumbria to be opened, and then we wonder at the consequences. If we want to have a domestic steel capacity, the way to do it is not to burden the producers and, indeed, our taxpayers with the costs of this policy and to be honest about the realism of deferring it.

I close by saying that we are again about to take a decision that will have consequences, which will be a repeat of a policy that has never, ever worked: the nationalisation of steel, which fails every time. It is like that scene of Homer Simpson constantly trying to grab his beer can from some electric wires and electrocuting himself each time and going back to it. In 1949 and in 1967, nationalisation led to disinvestment and maladministration, to political rather than economic decisions and, in the end, not only to the failure of the industry but to taxpayers being left on the hook, as it will this time, to the tune of £700,000 a day in this case.

“… the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire”.

Employment Rights Bill

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, what a privilege to follow the fourth of those four outstanding maiden speeches. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, that I echo her sense that the humanity and dignity of the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, in the face of extraordinary provocation, was an inspiration not only to the many people who uphold the best and most decent tendencies in the Labour Party, but to everyone in this country who values tolerance, religious pluralism, civility in public discourse and the supremacy of parliamentary life. I hope I will not destroy her credibility when I say that of all the people in the independent group, she was the only one I was secretly rooting for during that bizarre moment in our political life.

What a pleasure, also, to follow my noble friend Lady Cash—my friend of three and a half decades. I remember seeing a picture of my noble friend in the Observer, in about 2009, with the most extraordinary array of lefty lawyers, including, if memory serves, the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Kennedy of the Shaws. They were making this great defence of liberty, and that has been her core belief throughout her political career. It was very apt that, when she stood for another place, she fought in Westminster, the constituency of both JS Mill and of John Wilkes. If there is one precept that this country has developed and exported, and contributed thereby to the happiness of humanity, it is personal autonomy.

My real privilege, however, is in following and welcoming my noble friend Lord Young. He is a one-man advertisement for the hereditary principle. It is an unfashionable cause to be making at a time like this. He did not mention that his father was a Labour peer. You would have got it, if you were listening between the lines. His father was best known for writing a book on meritocracy, which he was against. My noble friend has had a career that tests the outer limits of what we understand by meritocracy. Right from the start, he got into Oxford on the basis of having received an acceptance letter in error. They posted it by mistake, even though he failed to make the grade. He then successfully argued that they had a moral obligation to take him anyway. He went on to have this extraordinary career, which I can only describe as cinematic—in the literal sense, in that a film was made in 2008 of my noble friend’s life; he was played by Simon Pegg. The only other person I can think of who has had a biopic before he was elected to anything is the current Vice-President of the United States. But I will not push that resemblance.

My noble friend then went on again and again to show that quirkiness, that independence of character and that courage that is, I think, one of our greatest virtues as a people. I mean no disrespect to our political system when I say that you can get to this Chamber by being careful and correct and conformist in your views. I know one or two people who have made it to the top in politics by waiting until everyone else has spoken before they express a view, by knowing how to nod sagely and talk slowly. No one would describe my noble friend in such terms.

The two particular causes with which he has been most recently associated—the Free Speech Union and the Critic, which began as an anti-lockdown campaign—showed extraordinary moral courage: not the simple courage which some people have and some do not but that readiness, that intellectual readiness, to be incredibly unpopular but to stand by a position that you know to be right. Personally, I have to say that, on the lockdown, I remember the days when people were accusing him of being a eugenicist and a mass murderer and all the rest of it, but with every day that has passed he has come to be more and more vindicated.

Turning to the Bill itself, I can be very brief. I am afraid I find that it contains absolutely no redeeming qualities whatever. I could go on at length about what is wrong with it, but I would be repeating many of the arguments that we have already heard, not least from my noble friends Lady Barran, Lady Coffey and Lady Noakes. I will focus on just one solitary provision, which is the rights from day one. I think we are in real danger in this nation of having more and more workers’ rights and fewer and fewer workers. Here is an unpopular truth that people very rarely like to admit and never really like to verbalise: the way of encouraging people to hire is to make it easier for them to fire. The way in which you encourage employers to take on more staff is to give them the reassurance that they are not going to be stuck with duds or embroiled in weeks and weeks of acrimony for the price of a second-class stamp or an email by somebody who they had then to remove from employment.

That has been the secret of our country’s success for some three decades. Whatever the world has thrown at us, including the global financial crisis and the pandemic, structural employment has always been higher here than in Europe because we have this relative flexibility in our labour market that means that we bounce back very quickly from downturns because companies are prepared to take people on. I think that is ceasing to be the case now. I speak as the father of two children who are just entering the workplace and I listen to what their friends are saying. If you speak to anyone of that age, there is a palpable freeze now, an uncertainty among employers, in anticipation of both this Bill and the related rise in national insurance. I have a fear that those 30 years of structurally low unemployment are about to come to an end.

Noble Lords will be able to look back at my words and laugh at me if I have got this wrong, but I suspect that we are at the beginning of what is going to be a sustained and secular rise in unemployment. As I say, I hope to heaven that I am mistaken about that, but, as Scotland’s national poet once said:

“An’ forward tho’ I cannot see,


I guess an’ fear!”

Tariffs: Canada and Mexico

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, we are aware that the US has imposed a tariff on all Chinese goods. I reiterate that it is not for me to comment on another country’s bilateral trade relationships—that is a matter for the US—but we are of course aware of China’s retaliatory response. We respect China’s dialogue with the US and will not intervene. However, the Government are prepared to take any necessary action to mitigate the potential economic impact on our businesses and will continue to monitor the situation.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, to return to the Minister’s first Answer, of course I am sensible that there are things that you do not say in public, but I hope that in private His Majesty’s Government are making it clear that we have an interest in free trade within North America. We are the largest investor in the US and we will be affected by US tariffs on every component part that will be hit by them. We also have an enduring interest in the prosperity of Canada. How can anyone in this country think of Canada without thinking of Vimy Ridge, Juno beach and a hundred other battlefields where it has stood alongside us? I hope we will make it very clear that free trade between the United States and Canada is a British national interest.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, Canada is a valued partner for the UK, including as a Commonwealth member state, and our shared ties are deep and historic, as noted by our respective Prime Ministers when they spoke on 5 February. Our trade relationship, which was worth more than £26 billion in the four quarters to the end of quarter 3 in 2024, supports jobs and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic. This is underpinned by our trade continuity agreement. These relationships are important and ongoing. We will continue these discussions and hope to further and deepen our ties with Canada in due course.