United States Tariffs: Steel and Aluminium

Debate between Lord King of Bridgwater and Baroness Fairhead

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fairhead]

I thank the noble Lord for his welcome. I do not agree with his sense of impotence regarding the Statement. To begin with, there are a whole range of things we are doing for global steel capacity. We are part of the EU and work within that framework. We are engaging on behalf of UK industry with the US and EU, and our hope is that we can negotiate. We are looking at exemptions—I would not like to give you the probability of which, if any, we will get, but we are certainly pushing very hard for that. We need to continue to engage and represent the UK as part of the EU in this regard.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

While the Minister is absolutely right that we must act in full conjunction with the European Union, there is no question but that we have a very special relationship—in whatever way that is described—with the United States. Although the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, has said that we cannot possibly trust the President of the United States, he is the President and it is very important that the Secretary of State makes effective representations to him and his colleagues to ensure that we avoid what could otherwise be an extremely difficult situation.

[Baroness Fairhead]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend Lord King. Very strenuous representations will be made. We think these tariffs have a very weak legal basis, and the EU deems that this will enable some countermeasures and, possibly, safeguards to be put in place. We need to engage with this very important friend and ally to make sure we get above this and move on to the agenda of building wealth right across the world, and make sure that we have a sensible global approach to global problems.