Energy-intensive Industries

Debate between Angela Smith and Ian Swales

Thursday 11th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and congratulate him on securing this important debate. I echo his comments on the relative emptiness of the Chamber. To emphasise the point, the relative emptiness is not because Parliament does not recognise the importance of carbon taxes and energy-intensive industries, but because all hon. Members are aware of the huge constitutional issues we face. Many of our colleagues are in Scotland trying to save the Union, and I pay tribute to them for doing so.

The debate has included one contribution from an east midlands Member and three contributions from north-east Members. I shall try to balance that by giving the perspective of the manufacturing sector in Yorkshire and the Humber, which is one of the most important manufacturing bases in the country, alongside the north-east, the north-west and, importantly, Scotland. A conservative estimate is that at least 800,000 people work in energy-intensive industries in the UK. I will call them “foundation industries”—I do not like the term, “energy-intensive industries” and “foundation industries” is a much better description. Foundation industries are critical to the whole of our manufacturing base. Included in those 800,000 are the supply chains built around the key industries.

We are entering an era of shortening our supply chains—the production and supply of components for other industries are being re-shored in the UK, which is welcome. If we look at the supply chains of BAE Systems, one of our most important manufacturing companies, it is immediately obvious how well balanced the company and its supply chain are in the country. Its impact is felt not only in the north-west in Barrow-in-Furness and Warton, but throughout the country, particularly in Scotland, Yorkshire and the Humber and the broader north-west.

That illustrates an important point about Scotland. Manufacturing in Scotland is important not only to the Scottish economy but to the whole UK economy. The shortening of the supply chains and the building of stronger supply chains in our country is making the integration of our manufacturing base more important than it has ever been in our industrial history. From that point of view, UK manufacturing is stronger together, just as the UK is better together with Scotland. That point in the debate is often overlooked. All the talk is of the pound and everything else, but it is important not to forget that if we are to rebalance the UK economy, manufacturing is the best point at which to start because it is already well balanced. Manufacturing in Scotland is an integral part of that.

[Ian Swales]

The hon. Lady is right. One of the most important foundation chemicals is ethylene. There is a pipeline between the north-west of England to Teesside and then Scotland. That pipeline helped in the recent Grangemouth dispute.

[Angela Smith]

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North made the point about shale gas, which gives us the potential to supply a good, domestic feedstock for the chemical industry. It would be more efficient and better for us all round for that feedstock to be delivered throughout the UK, rather than having borders between Scotland and England. That is an obvious point, but it is important to put it on the record.

The definition of “foundation industry” varies, but broadly we mean steel, cement and lime manufacturing, chemicals, ceramics, glass and paper. The contribution those industries make to key economic activities such as transport and construction is fairly obvious, but their importance in other ways is often overlooked. For instance, the chemicals industry has contributed to the growth of food manufacturing in this country, and chemicals will continue to be important for agricultural use and in ensuring that we maintain a healthy food production capacity in this country. We thus realise how apt the term “foundation industry” is, as they are key industrial sectors.

At a conservative estimate, those industries make a contribution of roughly £15 billion to UK GDP per annum. Depending on the definition of “foundation industries”, their combined turnover varies between £70 billion and £95 billion per annum. They provide 11% of the UK’s gross value added. Their contribution to UK export capacity is very significant: they contribute at least 30% of our export capacity, but I have read somewhere that it could be as high as 54%. Again, that depends on the definition of “foundation industry”.

The foundation industries have a strong research and development profile, which is often underestimated and overlooked in terms of their importance to the UK. The future of the sectors is dependent on high-quality research and development profiles, on significant investment, and on ensuring that we stay ahead of the game in manufacturing capacity and at the high-value-added end of the manufacturing spectrum.

I pay tribute to the first of the catapult centres developed in the UK—in south Yorkshire, at the advanced manufacturing park at Catcliffe—more than 10 years ago by Yorkshire Forward and others in Sheffield and Rotherham. The park is focused on engineering, particularly steel engineering, and is going from strength to strength. A partnership in Sheffield between Boeing, Rolls-Royce, the university of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam university is building a brand new factory, Factory 2050, alongside the original buildings, and is now investing heavily in research into nuclear capacity. It is a highly successful venture that provided the blueprint for the Government’s catapult centre strategy.

As a Sheffield and Barnsley MP, I am incredibly proud of the innovative work done in south Yorkshire in using the concept of catapult centres to promote the collaboration between academic institutions and our manufacturing centre to make us world class in innovation and the development of new technologies. Our foundation industries are also at the forefront of work force investment. They have a good record on paying their work force well—these are good jobs—and investing heavily in apprenticeships and ongoing professional development training. The country needs more of that. In many cases, our foundation industries provide a good example of best practice.

My constituency has many foundation industries within its borders. Fox Wire produces world-class cabling for the oil industry and many other applications. Tata Speciality Steels provides steel for the aerospace industry and is at the top end of steel manufacturing in this country. In fact, one reason it is headquartered in my area is that it cannot find elsewhere the skill sets it needs to maintain its position as the best in steel manufacturing. We are very proud of that. In addition to those industries, British Glass is headquartered in my constituency, and I also have cement, paper and ceramic interests, so I represent a range of manufacturing interests.

One of the ceramics companies in my constituency, Naylor, is a family company, not foreign-owned, and has been in existence for more than 100 years. Only this week, it secured six-figure funding towards a £2.5 million project to increase capacity, while reducing energy consumption, at its Cawthorne factory in my constituency, through a combination of smart metering and an in-house plastics reprocessing plant to make use of its own waste on site. There are limits to what can be done to reduce energy consumption, but these are practical, innovative ways of continuing to reduce energy use. In addition to energy efficient lighting, a new energy efficient kiln and dryer has created extra capacity, while reducing energy costs, and led to 30 new jobs. I am proud of Naylor. This superb company is increasing its exports profile and winning awards all over the place, while being dedicated to reducing its carbon footprint—because it makes financial sense. I think the hon. Member for Redcar made this point. The industry is already incentivised to reduce its carbon footprint because it will make business more efficient and cost-effective.

Briefly, Sheffield city region provided some of the funding for that project, which is a tribute to an important element in the ongoing constitutional debate—local decision making. We need some devolutionary thinking on getting investment in manufacturing in the rest of England, never mind the other constituent parts of the UK.

Industry is committed to reducing energy use. For example, Celsa, a recycled steel plant in Cardiff, is one of the most energy and labour efficient plants in Europe, and we have seen significant reductions in electricity consumption by the steel industry in the past 30 years. The figures are startling. I do not have them to hand, but the electricity consumption of steel making in my city has gone down significantly in the past 30 years. On that point, will the Minister respond to the request by steel makers across the UK that the Government reconsider the advanced capital allowances for energy efficiency? The scheme is based on generic lists of technologies and excludes the more specific but often large energy efficiency opportunities that our foundation industries want to engage with. I would be interested to hear whether the Treasury is prepared to reconsider that scheme and take the common-sense approach of applying it to these large-scale energy efficiency projects.

The role of foundation industries in developing a green economy should not be overlooked, as I said in an earlier intervention. I was not saying that we should move faster than the rest of Europe; in some ways, I was making the reverse point. We must be careful not to damage the competitiveness of the foundation industries in this country, precisely because they are critical to delivering the green economy we need, not just in the UK but across European and globally. We know that the foundation industries have an important role to play in developing renewable energies, such as carbon capture and storage, and we know that they play a valuable role in the production of energy-efficient construction materials, particularly in respect of chemicals. The chemicals sector is doing a good job of developing wonderful new materials for use in construction projects, not just for commercial but for domestic building, as I saw when I visited a research project at Nottingham university involving several chemical companies, including BASF. That project is doing impressive work to cut the carbon footprint of domestic building projects and to cut energy costs across the board, especially for home owners.

British Glass is developing new trading standards and is keen to see glass play its part in developing a green economy, and new glass technologies are being developed all the time. Let us not forget either that wind turbines require a lot of steel in order to help reduce our carbon footprint and produce green energy. The steel industry also points out that the development of the lightweight vehicles we increasingly see on our roads is largely down to work by the steel industry to reduce the weight of construction materials. The foundation sectors are doing a great deal of work to develop the green economy, but the costs being incurred by our industries as a result of our carbon-intensive industrial past must not be forgotten.

We are now paying the clean-up costs of an industrial legacy that has left many of our environments badly degraded. As an example, the water industry in Yorkshire has to pay out millions of pounds a year to clean up the water collected from a catchment that is badly degraded—by peat degradation. The water must go through multiple processes to remove the peat before it can be put into our catchment and our networks. A great deal of work is involved, and we have to recognise that the industry is paying the costs of carbon pollution in the past. That should not be overlooked when we reflect on the arguments in favour of transitioning to a green economy. It is very short-sighted to argue that the green economy is not important to our future; it quite clearly is.

Let me move on directly to the impact of carbon taxes and levies on our foundation industries. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North made the point, which should be reiterated, that Tata Steel, for instance, has estimated that year-ahead wholesale electricity prices are 70% and 45% higher than in Germany and France respectively. That is driven in large part by policy-driven taxes and levies for the most intensive users; those were 2.5 and 6.5 times higher than in Germany and France respectively in 2011.

The British Ceramic Confederation has pointed out that DECC’s own analysis shows that climate-related charges are already 19% of the industry’s base load price, which will rise to 47% in 2020. The manufacturers’ association EEF has stated that the Government’s own estimates indicate that industrial electricity prices will increase by 50% by 2020 and 70% by 2030. Moreover, Tata Steel is clear that the levies with the greatest impact today are the renewables obligation and the carbon price floor. The company also points out that many of its steel competitors in Europe will either be completely exempt from many of the levies or have their charges capped.

As far as I am concerned, the Government’s recognition of the damage inflicted on our manufacturing sector by the carbon price floor is most welcome, but why on earth they introduced the floor price in the first place remains a mystery. As I say, we welcome their acknowledgment in this year’s Budget of the mistake made. The proposals laid on the table represent something of a step forward in resolving the issues, but they do not resolve all the issues related to the imposition of the carbon price floor in particular on our sectors.

The 2014 Budget announced that the carbon price floor would be frozen at £18.08 from 2016-17 to 2019-20, saving all UK business an estimated £4 billion over three years. The Government will review the carbon price floor beyond 2020, once the impact of the reform of the EU emissions trading scheme is clear. They are extending existing compensation for CPF and ETS for 2019-20 and we of course have the compensation package in place.

It is my understanding, however, that the compensation package is underspending, so the Minister, who until a moment ago was busy on her mobile phone, might like to concentrate on providing an explanation of why the Government are underspending on their compensation package to industries that desperately need to see it delivered. She needs to explain, too, why it continues to be the case that the UK does not appear to be punching at its weight when it comes to making the case to Europe that more of our foundation industry sectors should be included in state aid guidelines. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but the Minister should realise that this is not a laughing matter.

We need to know why the Government are not working harder to make the case to Europe that more of the sectors affected by the carbon floor price should be included in European state aid schemes. That is at the heart of this debate. Sectors such as ceramics make intensive use of electricity—use of the electric arc furnace is not confined to the steel industry; it is used in ceramics, too—yet the ceramics sector has been almost entirely excluded from the compensation on the table at the moment. The Government should explain that, or at least make a commitment to ensure that that unfairness in the compensation schemes on the table is removed as soon as possible.

We need to see a commitment to introduce the announced mitigation measures for the renewables obligation as soon as state aid approval has been granted by Brussels. As I said, we also need to see a commitment to ensuring that the sectors included in state aid are extended as soon as possible. We need an approach that gives specific consideration to premier league energy-efficiency projects, or incentive schemes such as the enhanced capital allowances that I mentioned. We need to see UK support at the October European Council meeting for including the principle of the continuance of robustly protecting the competitiveness of the sectors most at risk at the level of best performance. We need to see, too, a commitment from the Government to support the industrial strategies developed by the foundation industries, such as the chemistry growth partnership and the developing UK metals strategy.

Finally, I want to hear the Minister’s response to the argument that a consolidation of the taxes and levies on the table at the moment would be a sensible way forward. A significant number of taxes and levies are being placed as a burden on our foundation industries. Indeed, one company in my constituency has to employ a highly skilled individual full time just to deal with compliance with the range of levies and taxes that need to be delivered year on year. The Government need to think again about the impact on industry of having to work through so many different schemes and so many different levies year on year. Nobody is arguing against the principle of carbon taxation—

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Angela Smith and Ian Swales

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, when it comes to growth, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box in 2010 and confidently told the House that by this financial year the economy would be on the mend, with growth forecast at 2.8%, but we now know that his forecast was out by 2.5 %. Today, he had to downgrade growth for this year yet again, to 0.6%.

We have a downgraded Chancellor who has sucked demand out of the economy with his ill-thought-through VAT hike and his draconian cuts to public spending. Those cuts have gone too far, too fast. If the latest estimates are right, spending cuts have so far wiped 1.4% of growth out of the economy, and the biggest cuts are yet to come. But at least the millionaires of Sheffield and Barnsley will have extra money in their pockets this April when the 50p tax rate is abolished.

The measures that the Chancellor has introduced today will go nowhere near to addressing the problems that he has caused. Instead of plan B, we have inadequate measures that do not even go halfway towards addressing the problems facing the country. The child care package announced yesterday, for instance, is designed to help hard-pressed working families, but unfortunately it will not come into operation until after the next general election. Once again, it is jam tomorrow. There is not much on offer for the parents and families struggling with the costs of child care today.

There is no doubt that house buyers might be thankful for the help being offered today, but a quick look at the Chancellor’s record on housing does not bode well. This is the same Chancellor who, in 2011, unveiled what was termed a “radical and unashamedly ambitious” strategy to give the housing industry a “shot in the arm”. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition referred to this earlier. At the heart of that strategy was a scheme which the Chancellor claimed would help 100,000 to people to buy their own homes. To date, just 1,500 people have realised that dream. That is a 1.5% success rate, which is almost as bad as the Work programme—or as good, depending on which way we look at it.

A year later, we had what was described as the Government

“rolling its sleeves up and doing all it can”.

That included introducing a £10 billion guarantee scheme which, while welcome, has yet to deliver a single penny of support for house building. It took the Government six months to release details of the scheme, and it will not be open to receive bids until April this year. Last year, housing starts fell by 11% to below 100,000, which is less than half the number required to meet housing need, and I am not convinced that the help announced today will kick-start the stagnant housing market.

Then we come to infrastructure. The £3 billion a year—£15 billion over the next decade—is nowhere near what we need to invest in roads, schools, transport and housing if we are going to get the economy growing again and build for our economic future. If, as now seems possible, we are entering the third recession in as many years, we needed to see something much more dramatic today. However, the Chancellor has failed to deliver.

Let us take VAT as another example. The Opposition have said that he should temporarily reverse his VAT hike, because consumers need help and they need it now. Reversing the hike would have alleviated some of the pain they are feeling, and it would have helped the pound in their pocket go a little further.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Angela Smith]

No! [Interruption.] I have given way twice and I am not giving way again. I do apologise.

The Chancellor should also dramatically reverse the cut he made to the last Labour Government’s capital spending plans, given that spending is now £12.8 billion lower, year on year, than Labour planned. At a time when the economy is barely moving forward, we need the Government to invest. We need to get the builders back to work, to create the homes to give first-time buyers the future they are looking for. In the process, we need to strengthen our economy. For every 100,000 homes built, 1% is added to our gross domestic product, but this is about more than that. There are millions on council waiting lists, there are first-time buyers who cannot get on to the housing ladder, and homelessness has rocketed. Building houses is good not only for the economy but for society, too. Before it is too late, we need to prevent another lost generation from being scarred by unemployment, by guaranteeing every young person who has been out of work for a year or more a job, funded by the tax on bank bonuses that I mentioned earlier.

It is never too late for this Chancellor to change course. Consumers need to be given confidence to spend again; companies need the confidence to invest again; banks need to lend again to small companies that desperately need finance to invest. The country is in desperate need of infrastructure investment. High Speed 2 is welcome, but we are not going to get HS2 for some time yet. We need that infrastructure now. There are many other road and other transport schemes, and how many primary schools do we need? We know that in every part of the country, pressure on places is increasing; we need to get those schools built. By doing that, we could help to kick-start the economy. The Government need to increase their tax receipts to pay for quality, efficiently produced public goods and services.

Unfortunately, this Chancellor seems to be stuck in a rut—a self-defeating ideological rut of austerity piled on austerity. It is a rut that could, I believe, mean many years of sub-normal growth, with the economy settling at a level much lower than its potential would allow. For ordinary people, that will mean living with high unemployment, falling living standards and the continual deterioration of many of the public services on which our constituents depend. The Chancellor should change course now—decisively and with confidence—before the damage being inflicted on the UK economy becomes even more deeply entrenched and damages us permanently.