Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anna Soubry and Scott Mann

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

15. What infrastructure projects are using British-made steel.

[The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)]

Crossrail, Europe’s biggest construction project, uses 7,000 tonnes of almost exclusively British steel. Network Rail sources 96% of its steel rail from Britain and it is all made in Scunthorpe—that is 120,000 tonnes a year for the next six years. We have changed the procurement rules so that wider social and economic factors are taken into account in public procurement, both locally and nationally, giving UK steel every chance to win contracts. In fact, it would be almost impossible not to buy British steel.

[Scott Mann]

North Cornwall has two new possible proposals for branch lines, one in Wadebridge and the other on the Okehampton link. Does my right hon. Friend welcome those proposals, and does she think, in the light of the recent EU referendum result, that it would be beneficial for British steel to be used in every new railway construction across the whole country?

[Anna Soubry]

We have changed the procurement rules in relation to Government funding, but there is really no excuse. We know how brilliant British steel is—[Interruption]—especially when it comes to the construction of railway lines. It is the best steel in the world, which is why so many people buy it when they are constructing rail lines.