Anna Turley
Main Page: Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar)Department Debates - View all Anna Turley's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
20. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) is right: there is a crisis in UK steel making and 2,000 jobs in my constituency are at risk. I have secured a Backbench Business debate on Thursday, and I would be grateful if Ministers could come to pledge their support for UK steel making. We have to see action on energy prices and business rates. If we do not, UK steel will have no future. It is up to Ministers now to take action.
Anna Soubry
I am delighted that the hon. Lady has secured that debate on Thursday and I will be there. It follows on from the debate that we had in Westminster Hall. As we know, there is an over-production of steel across the world. The consumption of steel has fallen dramatically and that has meant, for example, that the price of slab has almost halved. People say we could do something about the price of energy—if only it were that simple. It is hugely complicated. We already have a compensation scheme and we are looking at how we can expand it, but we have to make it clear that if we begin to take the pressure off electricity-intensive industries, we have to shift it somewhere else. It is not as simple as it perhaps seems, but the hon. Lady can be assured that we are well aware of what is happening in SSI UK, which is why I met it last week.