Steel Industry

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I have here a long list of the numerous occasions on which, over the past 10 years, I raised my concern over the emasculation of our steel industry and the fact that, if we did not do something very urgently, we might well lose the ability to produce, with a sovereign capability, virgin steel. That is very important for our national security broadly and in particular for our military power.

I can think of a number of specialist steels that are required, for example, in our deterrent submarines, our attack submarines and elsewhere, that we used to be the world expert at producing. Now, we have to go elsewhere to look for them in a world that is changing and becoming very dangerous. We cannot rely on getting them. Before the Second World War, we put an order in with Czechoslovakia for 40,000 tonnes of steel to be delivered here to help build ships. Of course, along came Hitler and he stopped all that happening, which put us in a very difficult position. We are in a world now where we do not know what will happen. Interestingly, Bismarck always referred to blood and iron—I think that changed to blood and steel—as the most important things for military power within your nation. Therefore, this really concerned me.

At the end of this long list of times I raised my concerns, I asked the previous Government whether they felt there was a strategic need to maintain a steel industry and, if not, how could we ensure our military and industrial resilience. The answer I got really made me feel that they did not think there was such a need, and they would not be able to ensure that resilience. I have to say that I was slightly worried about that.

I congratulate the Government on taking this issue seriously and taking action quickly. In the Cold War, when we worked on how we were going to kill Soviet submarines—we would have been jolly good at it, I hasten to add; I am glad we did not have a war, but we would have been good at it—the slang we used was “fastest with the mostest”. In other words, when you got a sniff of a submarine, you moved really quickly—the Government moved really quickly when they saw that something needed to be done—and put every effort, everything you had, into killing that submarine, which you needed to do. There are things that need to be done on this issue, and I am not sure that all of them are being done. I have a concern about the cost of energy, but all these things need to be looked at.

Noble Lords would be very sad if I did not mention ships, which, of course, are made of steel, and we have too few of them. There are plans that would involve using about 90,000 tonnes of steel—it is not very much, really, compared with some areas, but a lot of it is specialist steel—but those plans have not been turned into orders. We need to realise how important steel is for our maritime capability and ensure that those orders go in.

Finally, I say “flag hoist Bravo Zulu” to the Government, which means well done, because this is a good thing to do. I am glad we have come in to do this. It makes the nation realise that it is important, and the steel industry will realise that it is important, which it is. As my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe said, there is going to be a huge demand for steel more broadly.

US Steel and Aluminium Tariffs

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, that is very much a hypothetical question. As I said earlier, we have very good relations with both our key partners, the US and the EU, and we will continue to aim to maintain those relationships. We have seen no sign that the EU will take any action against us, and we will continue to pursue good, friendly and trade-based relationships with the EU.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the steel that the US imports from us is specialist steel. It is interesting that, for the new ballistic missile submarines—both our own and the American ones—a common missile compartment is being designed and built by the UK. It will contain specialist steel, for which the US will pay more money. The Government are absolutely right not to take any action at this stage, because people will look again at this and there will be sensible negotiations.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. As I said, we very much support the strengthening of our steel industry in this country. It is very important to us, and we are taking a number of measures to invest in and build that sector, including the specialist sectors he referred to.

Steel: Port Talbot

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. I point out that the Conservatives have not been in government continuously since the 1980s; there was a prolonged period when Labour was in power. However, the next meeting of the transition board, on 27 April, will discuss exactly that: how will that £100 million be spent on local regeneration? The Government have also invested just under £800 million in the four city deals and £150 million in the Swansea Bay area. We are also investing significant tens of millions, nearly £60 million, in the offshore wind industry in the area, so we are definitely putting our money where our mouth is.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I will return to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Fox. What percentage of British steel will be used in the Dreadnought class, the AUKUS class submarines, Type 26s, Type 32s and fleet solid support ships? We need sovereign capability and resilience, and I have a feeling that we will be relying on France and other countries for quite a lot of this specialist steel.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

The noble Lord knows far more about building warships than I ever will. All I can say, as I said earlier, is that 1% of defence requirement is provided by UK steel. We believe that this plan will allow us to produce the necessary steel for all our industries, particularly as technology develops. I say again that this is truly a first-class plan to regenerate the area and create a green steel industry for the UK. We should celebrate it while putting in a huge amount of attention to detail to ensure that we mitigate for affecting people’s lives, as much as possible.

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. In fact, the Department for Business and Trade, being ahead of the game as always, is already thinking about how to get utilisation of this trade deal done, to get through to all the regions and nations of the United Kingdom, to make sure in particular that all of our SME community has access to this deal—for example, Malaysia is a country we have never had a trade deal with before, and we now have tariff-free trade with Malaysia. A particular focus of mine, as the export Minister, will be to increase the level of access to our SMEs, because these are real companies, employing real people in real places,

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that there is a geostrategic aspect to this agreement? By almost every measure—investment and everything—the UK has more involvement in that region than any other EU country. We also run global shipping from the UK. In that sense, there is a geostrategic aspect, which is to be welcomed. Does the Minister agree?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The noble Lord will be able to comment much more on the geopolitical aspect than I can, because I come to this looking at it very much as a trade deal. When I was introduced to the deal, I looked at the map and could see that we were nowhere near the Indo-Pacific. The fact that we have come into that deal must surely be because we have such extensive reach in the region, and therefore in addition to trade there will be a knock-on effect for our geopolitical security, I am sure.

Baby-changing Facilities

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, again, that is a very good point. The issue is predominantly driven by space and, to some extent, finance and running costs. The Welsh Government did a very interesting study a few years back, in 2019-20, where they estimated that it costs between £2,500 and £5,000 to put in baby-changing facilities. We all know that the majority of small hospitality businesses are SMEs, and that sort of cost, let alone the ongoing cost of maintenance, cleaning, refuse collection and that sort of thing, at times makes it restrictive.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the joys is that these babies are being born into a free and wonderful country. Some 79 years ago today, 7,500 ships —the bulk of them British—landed the American, Canadian and British armies in Europe, at Normandy. Does the Minister agree that that helped lead to the destruction of the vile Nazi state? It is well worth commemorating that. Would it not be a good idea to have some more ships?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

Although that is not entirely within my brief, I entirely agree.