Steel Industry

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright). I do not agree with the last 30 seconds of his speech, but otherwise I could not put a cigarette paper between him and me. I voted for him to be Chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee because he knows how to do this. I apologise if I told anyone else that I was going to vote for them—I tend to tell everyone that—but I actually voted for him. I cannot disagree with the way in which he has just put the case for the UK steel industry. As I said in an earlier intervention, taking the politics out of this is the way to do it. There are things that the Government can do, and things that they cannot. In fairness to the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell), she said the same thing. Not everything is in the hands of the UK Government, and the less shouting and screaming we hear from the sides and the more working together we can achieve, the better.

That is not to say that people do not have a right to be angry; they do have that right. I represent a steel area, as do many hon. Members, and I understand the passion. A lot of people have contacted me in the past few days saying, “We’ve bailed out the banks. Why not the steel industry?” Do you know what? I cannot disagree with that. It is a strategic industry and it should be viewed by the Government in the same way as the banking industry is. I pay tribute to the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise, my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has said, time and again, that the steel industry is vital to this country and should be supported appropriately.

I pay tribute to the workers at Scunthorpe, who do an amazing job producing the best steel in the world. I also pay tribute to the unions there, which have responded to this crisis in a sensible and measured way and worked with everyone involved. They deserve credit for that. But where are we at with Scunthorpe? We local Members of Parliament all know that we are in a pretty bad place, and we are all committed to doing everything we can.

We have two prongs to our attack. The first involves supporting those who are affected by the announced and proposed job losses. I met the Minister the other night to put a couple of requests to her, and I shall put them on the record today. We welcome the £9 million that has been announced to support those who are affected. We wish we did not need it, but we welcome it. Our request in relation to that is that we want the support to be spent locally. We do not want outside providers coming in and giving training. We have excellent local colleges, and we have a local council which has a record of delivering through the regional growth fund. It delivered 800 jobs through a £10 million grant when we lost 1,000 jobs four years ago. We want a guarantee that funding can be used to support local small and medium-sized enterprises.

The taskforce, which has been referenced by the Secretary of State, has also put a couple of important asks to the Minister. We know that an offshore wind revolution is approaching the Humber. Some of the skills that have been lost from the site can be used in the jobs that are coming. However, there is a gap between the number of those who will lose their jobs and the number of jobs that are expected in places such as the South Humber Gateway in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). We need support to ensure that the workers can make that transition, and support from the Government to encourage DONG Energy to move beyond its memorandum of understanding with Able.

We need an acceleration in infrastructure projects locally. The North Killingholme flood project would be one that would help, as would bringing forward some of the offshore wind projects.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

British steel is a quality product. My hon. Friend talks about bringing forward projects, but when I speak to companies in Pendle they say that they use British steel because they have concerns about the quality of imported steel. Does he share those concerns?

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely. I am sorry that we do not have more time, because there is an awful lot more that I would like to say in this debate.

My hon. Friend brings me to the second part of our asks, which is how we try to secure the long-term future of the site, because we in Scunthorpe cannot afford to lose it. Scunthorpe is a steel town, and, like all local MPs, I want it to remain a steel town. There are things on which we need to take action. Chinese dumping and the quality of Chinese steel are mentioned repeatedly in that regard. It is true that, before this crisis and following pressure from all parts of the House, the Government had taken action in Europe, and we welcomed that. The carbon price floor was a mistake; my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes and I voted against it. I agree with those who say that we need to bring forward the compensation scheme. I also have sympathy with those who say let us pay it and damn EU approval.

It is worth noting that it is this Government who secured new EU procurement rules that make it easier to get local content. We want the HS2 contracts to go to Scunthorpe, new projects being brought forward and a clear message from this Government that they will do everything they can—in fairness, we have had that message—and that, under these new rules, UK content will be used as much as possible. We have been having useful meetings with the Cabinet Office Minister on this, and we will keep on meeting, as there are other things that need to be done around business rates. We need an enterprise zone for part of the site at Scunthorpe. It is a huge site and it is underutilised, and other things can be done there to secure more business. I wish that I could say more, but, unfortunately, I am out of time.