British Steel

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I would welcome her Select Committee, on which many Members currently in the Chamber serve, looking into this matter. There may be wider lessons to learn about how assets of such importance, where continuity is important, are held.

When it comes to paying the employees’ wages, we should be clear that the official receiver is responsible for that, not the Government. The Government have provided the official receiver with an indemnity, and his responsibility is to manage the business and to make a judgment about the business’s future prospects. He started today with a clear statement that the business continues to trade and that the workforce continue to be employed and to be paid. I hope that that was reassuring for the members of staff.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

On behalf of the thousands of my constituents whose livelihoods rely on Scunthorpe, may I thank the Secretary of State for his personal interest and dedication? He has worked incredibly hard to try to find a solution here. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) about not applying any ideology to the ownership model moving forward. We want to keep this site together, and we do not want any cherry-picking if it can be avoided.

Will the Secretary of State also encourage the official receiver to work with North Lincolnshire Council and the local enterprise partnership, which commissioned and paid for a study into how British Steel could make better use of other parts of the site to generate money? Some of it could be used for energy generation or for housing, but such proposals have not been taken forward by the current owners. Will he ensure that the official receiver looks closely at that?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I will certainly do that. As I said, the official receiver is independent, but it is very much in his interests to maximise the opportunities on the sites that are now in his charge, and I dare say that that study will be helpful.

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that we should not take an ideological approach. We need to do what is right for the jobs and livelihoods of the people who work in and around those sites.