Energy Efficiency and the Clean Growth Strategy

Anna Turley Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach)—I call her my friend because we serve on the same Committee and I have the utmost respect for her and her work. She gave a very impressive speech and I thank her for introducing today’s debate.

I want to focus my comments on the clean growth strategy—I am sure that other colleagues will do a far better job than me in talking about energy efficiency. I welcome the clean growth strategy; it sets out strong commitments to cut our carbon emissions in the UK and to improve energy efficiency. I thank the Minister for her recent visit to Teesside and I am grateful that she recognises the opportunities that we have there as one of the most energy-intensive areas in the country, as well as the huge potential to do something quite transformative.

The Committee on Climate Change has cautioned that there are policy areas where the Government need to flesh out the detail of how they will deliver on those aims of cutting our carbon emissions. We all know that there is no path to meeting our carbon emission target that does not involve the decarbonisation of industry. I want to focus on that in particular.

In 2016, industrial emissions fell, but largely due to the closure of the SSI steelworks in Redcar. Actually, energy prices played a huge role in the 2015 steel crisis. In the UK, our steel companies were paying 80% above the EU median cost for energy—that is a huge factor in one of the challenges that our steel industry faces—but we know that we cannot meet our emissions targets without looking at industry. No one wishes to see a repeat of the 2015 closure of the SSI steelworks in Redcar, which ended 175 years of a major industry that built the world by providing the steel that forged everything from the Sydney harbour bridge to the new Wembley stadium. The loss of 3,000 jobs had a devastating impact on an area with a proud heritage and a proud history of driving the industrial revolution through steel production and its many other energy-intensive industries. We do not want to reduce our emissions through that kind of crisis. Industrial decarbonisation, done in a properly sustained, managed and strategic way, is the way forward, and it is a clear priority in the Government’s strategy.

We already have good energy efficiency action plans for several sectors, including cement, ceramics, oil and chemicals. That is a really positive start, but we need to go much further to meet the challenge. One of the easiest and most cost-effective solutions is carbon capture and storage. As the Minister knows, Teesside is hugely ambitious about becoming one of Europe’s first clean industrial zones and using CCS to drive that. The Teesside Collective in my constituency is ready and waiting to start decarbonising UK industry.

Teesside is home to nearly 60% of the UK’s major energy users in the process and chemicals sectors. To keep those industries thriving and to retain jobs, investment and growth in our area in a low-carbon world, we need to be serious about cleaning up their emissions. The internationally renowned North East of England Process Industry Cluster represents chemicals-based industries across the region, but it is concentrated in Teesside. The sector generates £26 billion of sales and £12 billion of exports annually, and is the north-east’s largest industrial sector.

The chemicals sector is up against strong international competition. NEPIC estimates that CCS could create and safeguard almost 250,000 jobs in the next 30 to 40 years. The Committee on Climate Change has shown that CCS could virtually halve the cost to the UK of meeting emissions targets. The UK is especially well placed to be a leader in the industry, not least because of the storage space in depleted oilfields just off our coast. The Library estimates that CCS could sustain up to 60,000 jobs and deliver a £160 billion economic boost by 2050 if it were delivered along the east coast.

The Government have promised a CCS demonstration project, which I really welcome. Of course, I sincerely hope that it will be in Teesside, but wherever in the UK it is based, the most important thing is that it comes to fruition. We cannot lose another opportunity. The new £100 million commitment is a significant downgrade from the £1 billion of funding that the Government pulled from CCS in 2015. It is a cautious investment in a crucial technology, but I welcome it as an important step forward.

On Teesside, we are taking a couple of other approaches to improving energy efficiency and decarbonising. District heating has huge potential. I welcome the Government’s recognition of the role that it can play in reducing bills for both homes and businesses, and we are keen to deliver it on Teesside. We want to use our vast renewable energy resources, which the wind turbines off our coast make very visible, to support our energy intensive industries, and we want to continue to innovate, as we have done for more than 200 years. We want to use the carbon dioxide that is produced for useful projects, such as replacing oil with bio-resource. We have a huge number of plans afoot in Teesside. We are looking to work positively and constructively with the Government, and we welcome all the positive signals we have had from them so far.

The former SSI site in my constituency will be the focus of much of that work. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley Mayor, issued a press release this week previewing an upcoming Government energy announcement about the site. We do not know any more than the details that appeared in the media, but they sound positive, and I welcome and support this. As the Minister knows, the former SSI site has huge potential for that kind of investment to help to fulfil our ambition of being a world leading clean industrial zone, and I do not hesitate to back it.

However, I am slightly concerned that we are racing ahead to make an announcement without necessarily having the means to follow it through. I would welcome more detail about that from the Minister. As she knows, the former SSI site is still in the hands of the Thai banks, and I am concerned that a premature announcement on what will happen on the site might push up its value and make it harder for us to negotiate with the banks and get the site out of their hands to enable us to carry out all our wonderful plans and projects. Any further information from the Minister would be gratefully received.

Finally, let me say something about our potential. Energy efficiency and clean growth are not only priorities for tackling climate change and poverty, but offer huge economic potential in jobs and investment in the UK. In areas such as mine, which lost 3,000 jobs overnight, every job is critical. We desperately need investment and growth. The UK energy efficiency sector already turns over £20.3 billion, employs 144,000 people and sells exports worth more than £1 billion. We are in a prime position, particularly in Teesside, further to increase the market and to export our skills and technology to the world. This is a chance to future-proof our industries, protect our jobs and create new ones, and ensure that areas such as Teesside can play as big a role in the industry of this country and the world in the future as they did in the past.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anna Turley Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is a great pleasure to welcome back to the House the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley). I know that the House will join me in doing so.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is great to be back.

We have ambitious plans on Teesside to create 20,000 jobs on the former SSI steel site. The biggest issue holding us back is, obviously, the ownership of the site. Can the Secretary of State update us on what conversations he is having with the official receiver and the Thai banks to enable us to fulfil our potential, create jobs, and bring investment back to the site?

[Greg Clark]

I welcome the hon. Lady back to the House and commend her for her commitment to ensuring that we secure the best possible future for that site. I shall visit Teesside shortly to continue our discussions. There is great commitment on the part of both the Government and the local development corporation to finding the right solution. The ownership is not in the Government’s hands, but everything that can be done is being done.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Anna Turley Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship as always, Sir David. I thank the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) for securing this debate and for his powerful contribution.

Carbon capture and storage is a technology with huge importance for our industry, energy and our climate challenges. It has huge potential to bring investment and jobs to Teesside, which is why I am so pleased to be joined today by so many colleagues from the Tees valley area. I welcome the shared cross-party ambition to see the UK leading the way by introducing CCS into our national infrastructure.

Following the clean growth strategy, which the Government published recently, I hope that this debate will help to reinforce the case for making progress. Earlier this year, I pressed the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd)—the then industry Minister—on the need for some clear Government leadership to help to get the technology off the ground, and I am delighted to see the process reignited in the clean growth strategy and the promise of a CCS demonstration project. I sincerely hope to see that responsibility granted to the Teesside Collective in my constituency—a project ready and waiting to start decarbonising UK industry.

Meeting our commitments to reduce emissions under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Paris agreement while protecting and expanding British industry is a serious challenge. The fifth carbon budget commits to a 57% reduction from 1990 levels by 2030. The easiest and most cost-effective solution to this challenge is, without doubt, CCS.

Research by the Committee on Climate Change has shown that CCS could virtually halve the costs for the UK of meeting emissions targets. The UK is especially well placed to be a leader in the industry, not least because of storage space in our depleted oilfields just off our coasts, but the clock is ticking. The UK has fallen down the Global CCS Institute’s readiness index in the past two years, due to a

“lack of clear CCS policy”.

The Committee on Climate Change has also been clear that we must develop this technology in the coming years so that we are ready for a full-scale operation in the 2030s.

There is also an urgent need to stay competitive with our continental partners, which is particularly important post-Brexit. In fact, getting ahead on CCS could be the competitive edge that we need to attract inward investment. If we delay, we will see that investment lost to other countries who get ahead. For example, this year Norway announced the award of contracts for full-scale carbon capture at cement, ammonia and waste-to-energy plants. In 2016, Toshiba completed construction of a carbon capture facility at a waste incineration plant in Saga city, and the world’s first large-scale carbon capture facility in the steel industry was launched in Abu Dhabi. The Dutch Government have committed to CCS and handling 20 million tonnes by 2030 from industrial sites. Rotterdam is one of the biggest industrial zone competitors, so it is vital for Teesside to get ahead.

The difficulties we have experienced in the steel industry, where energy cost pressures are higher than those faced by our European competitors, are a warning of what is to come if we do not get serious about industry decarbonisation. As my neighbour, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, has mentioned, our region has huge CCS potential. The Teesside Collective project could become one of Europe’s first clean industrial zones.

Yesterday, I attended the launch of the South Tees mayoral development corporation’s strategic masterplan for the future of the former SSI steel site. At 2,000 acres, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to attract global investment and to become a hub for new industries and technologies. We could genuinely create a world-renowned site for clean industry with CCS at its heart.

Teesside is home to nearly 60% of the UK’s major energy users in the process and chemical sectors. The internationally renowned North East of England Process Industry Cluster—NEPIC—represents chemical-based industries in the region, but particularly those concentrated in Teesside. The sector generates £26 billion of annual sales, £12 billion of exports and is the north-east’s largest industrial sector. BOC, one of the Teesside Collective partners, operates the UK’s largest hydrogen plant, which produces over half the UK’s hydrogen. If we are to convert our gas grids to hydrogen—as Leeds is currently exploring—CCS on Teesside would need to be a key part of that decarbonisation strategy. Another Teesside Collective partner, Lotte Chemical, produces plastic for the soft drinks industry. CCS could capture over 90% of its carbon output, essentially decarbonising the soft drinks materials supply chain.

The density of our industry makes us a heavy emitter of carbon dioxide—it is three times the national average and accounts for more than a fifth of all UK industrial emissions. That makes us especially vulnerable to uncompetitive energy prices and carbon price pressures relative to other countries, but it also makes us a prime candidate for CCS, because the technology could drastically cut a very significant proportion of UK emissions. If we combine that with our close proximity to the North sea industry and potential storage sites in depleted oil fields, it means that Teesside would be one of the most efficient and cost-effective locations for a test case. The technology would help us to maintain and even enhance the comparative advantage we already have in chemicals and process industries. Or, to put it another way, without support to decarbonise our industry, we risk seeing the problems at the SSI steelworks happen in our other sectors.

NEPIC estimates that the use of CCS could create and safeguard almost 250,000 jobs by 2060, and 7,000 new jobs could be created in Teesside for the building and operating of facilities alone. The House of Commons Library estimates that CCS could sustain up to 60,000 jobs and deliver a £160 billion economic boost by 2050 if it is delivered along the east coast. Teesside is ready and waiting to face the carbon reduction challenge and could be capturing and storing CO₂ within six years.

The Teesside Collective has costed engineering for three industrial plants and presented to Government the business case for an initial CCS hub in Tees valley. Its proposals are for a cost-effective introduction strategy, with companies capturing and storing 11 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over 15 years. That would then expand to include power stations and more industrial companies as the network demonstrates its worth. It estimates that a pilot could repay up to £31 million a year to the Government in carbon savings.

The Government have understandably been concerned about cost and value for money for the taxpayer, which unfortunately led to the disappointing decision in 2015 to cancel the £1 billion CCS competition. I am glad that the Government have changed their view and recognised that CCS is a technology where, for relatively small up-front investment, greater savings in reducing carbon can be made down the line.

The Oxburgh review noted that investing in CCS now would deliver the lowest cost to the consumer and that heavy costs would follow if it kept being delayed. I truly welcome the Government’s commitment of £100 million in the strategy, and I hope that some of that will support the £15 million FEED—front-end engineering design—study requested by the Teesside Collective. The Oxburgh review suggests that CCS on a power station could be constructed at a cost of £85 per megawatt-hour under state ownership, which is lower than Hinkley Point’s £92.5 per megawatt-hour. Those costs would be even lower for industrial clusters. Analysis by Green Alliance, for instance, suggests that costs in that context could be cut by two thirds, making it comparable to wind and solar power. The Teesside Collective already has two industrial plants producing pure CO₂ and therefore requiring no additional capture facilities at all.

The important thing is that business and Government work together to devise a sustainable funding model that does not place unsustainable costs or risks on the partner business or consumers. One crucial element missing from the clean growth strategy is the lynchpin for starting any major CCS project in the UK: work on transportation and storage. The report of the parliamentary advisory group on CCS stated:

“The lowest cost CO₂ storage solution for the UK at the scale required will be offshore geological storage in UK territorial waters.”

The group also cautioned:

“The state will need to take an enhanced role in managing storage risk if costs are to be minimised.”

Teesside is well placed for that, given its location and links with the oil industry, but work needs to start on developing the infrastructure soon, so that a cost-effective model can be found.

As the Government acknowledge in the clean growth strategy, the success of the offshore wind cost reduction taskforce provides a good model for the cost challenge taskforce on CCS. However, as NEPIC has argued, that success was based on Government investment through a clear marketplace and a funding model that provided the certainty that investors need. Both the Oxburgh review and the Green Alliance report recommend contracts for difference or similar for financing the storage infrastructure to achieve that.

The strongest message that I want to send to the Government is: let us get moving on this as soon as possible. The Public Accounts Committee cautions that the UK has already missed opportunities, and we cannot afford to lose any more. It is crucial for our energy and climate strategy, but it is also a chance for Britain to take a world lead in a cutting-edge industry, future-proof our industries, protect jobs and create new ones. Teesside stands ready and willing to get to work and make it happen.

Royal Mail Delivery Office Closures

Anna Turley Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Royal Mail delivery office closures.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I was prompted to seek the debate because my constituency is threatened with the closure of two delivery offices, and I understand the impact that those closures will have on my constituents if they go ahead. I also want to highlight the wider pattern of delivery office closures, which affect not only my constituents but communities across the country, which I believe to be a direct, damaging consequence of the coalition Government’s decision to privatise Royal Mail in 2013.

Earlier this year, Royal Mail announced plans to close the West Norwood and East Dulwich delivery offices in my constituency. Since then, more than 1,000 local residents have contacted me to express their opposition to the closures, and many have also written to Royal Mail’s chief executive, Moya Greene. People from all walks of life have attended three public protests on the issue, among them wheelchair users, small business owners, home workers and many families and elderly residents who are keen to speak out on the impact that the loss of their local delivery office will have on them.

Royal Mail delivery offices are where the final stage in the mail sorting process takes place, the depots from which postal workers collect their rounds, and the front counter facilities where customers can collect parcels, recorded delivery mail and mail sent to a PO box address. Royal Mail argues that because a parcel can be left with a neighbour or have its delivery rescheduled, communities can manage without delivery offices, but there are many people for whom those options simply do not work, including those who work long hours; the many small business owners and sole traders who prefer to collect their mail from their local delivery office precisely because they can pick it up at a time of their choosing, allowing them to get on with other important meetings and errands rather than being tied inflexibly to a particular location; and people who simply do not have the time to be tied to their home just to wait for a delivery.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on calling this debate. Does she agree that often the most vulnerable people—elderly people and so on—who are restricted by problematic public transport such as a lack of buses are also hit hard by these closures?

[Helen Hayes]

My hon. Friend’s intervention is well made. I will come on to talk about the impact that the closures will have on vulnerable constituents in my constituency and elsewhere.

Backbench Business

Anna Turley Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I agree. It is vital that rural communities, in particular, have public services, sometimes on a smaller scale, to ensure that people living in more dispersed communities have proper access to those services.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is being extremely generous in giving way so early in his speech. I want to follow up the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) made about financial services. The post office in France set up La Banque Postale, which has made £1 billion of profit, and the CWU is campaigning for our Post Office to emulate it. It should look at expanding into financial services as a means of increasing value.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

My hon. Friend, too, has anticipated something I am going to say in my speech. That just reinforces what I am going to say, so I am pleased about that.

The Government, bending to pressure and concerns from inside and outside Parliament, have just launched a consultation document, but it must lead to genuine action. It must not simply be a token exercise that does not change thinking in the Government and the Post Office. We need effective action to promote a long-term and successful future for the Post Office.

The Post Office’s current funding package runs out in March 2018 and must be replaced by an effective strategy and support for the future. The negotiations between the Government and the Post Office must not be simply a ritual seeking in reality just to manage decline. For customers, the most significant measures taken this year are the two announced tranches of Crown office closures and franchises, which followed an earlier programme affecting 50 Crown post offices in 2014-15.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) mentioned franchising. Independent research carried out in the past five years found that franchises left to WHSmith in 2007 and 2008 perform poorly—worse than Crown post offices in queue times, service times, customer service and advice, disabled access and the number of counter positions. That brings to mind the failure by railway franchises to measure up to the five-year record of success when the east coast main line was returned temporarily to the public sector. Franchises have also seen losses of experienced staff, fewer specialised staff and less space.

Steel Industry

Anna Turley Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I welcome the new Minister to his place and thank him for the accessible way in which he has already met me to discuss the former Sahaviriya Steel Industries site and the future for Teesside. I also welcome the shadow Minister to her place. She represents a steel town, and we think of her husband with great fondness—he was in this place for far too short a time, but he fought hard for the steel industry in his time here.

It will be no surprise to Members here or those watching at home that I find it painful to speak in another debate on steel and to have to continue fighting for an industry that, although fundamental to the British economy, was ripped out of my constituency last year like a heart from a body. The people of Teesside remain angry and disillusioned, and rightly so. They are the ones battling to deal with the aftermath of the Government’s failure to protect Teesside’s steel industry last year. Many are still seeking work, many have had pay and conditions slashed in new jobs, many have had to move away from their home and some may never work again, but they are all resolute, determined, made of steel. They are trying to look forward, so I owe it to them to try to look forward in this debate and to keep working for the industrial and manufacturing future not only of Redcar and Teesside but of our country.

Before I do that, l also owe it to them to raise again questions to which we have never had answers and injustices that have never been acknowledged. Why were the Government not willing to take a stake in SSI or to lend it the requested £100 million to restructure and save the plant, yet willing to take a 25% stake in Tata to save Port Talbot earlier this year at the time of the Welsh elections? Why would the Government not step in to mothball the blast furnace to allow it to be relit when market conditions picked up, as they already have? Why were offers from local companies to produce foundry coke, which could have kept the ovens alive and paid for a mothballing, never accepted?

I ask all that now not just to look back. If the Minister wants to tell us to move on and get over it, I am afraid that we cannot. I look about me now at the economic picture for the global steel market and the conditions in the UK and I could weep. The SSI Redcar plant was the one with the greatest export activity in the country, so the current drop in the pound had the greatest potential to boost our exports. It may have been able to turn around the picture at the most efficient site in the country, which before Christmas 2014 was in the black.

Industry experts tell me the value of SSI’s exports to our balance of trade could now have been £1 billion, with those exports principally heading to the far east—in other words, outside the EU. I see that international expectation in the industry is that the price of steel will continue to increase. I see a new runway being commissioned for Heathrow that needs 370,000 tonnes of steel—the same as building 16 Wembley stadiums—and a company there that wants to buy British. I see cutting-edge new developments in steel in this country—two thirds of UK steel products were not even invented 15 years ago.

SSI lacked the reserves to keep the plant alive through the crisis. If only it had been supported, it would now be exporting extremely successfully. Surely if we believe in an active, interventionist Government who support this country’s industry and exports, we are an example of where they should have stepped in.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for the Redcar site, which I know well. She commands great loyalty in the town from many people and I respect her for how she has played the grim hand that she was dealt as soon as she was elected. Does she agree that the sad irony of the SSI site—the old Teesside Cast Products site—is that it was the second most efficient plant in the European Union after Dunkirk?

[Anna Turley]

My hon. Friend is right. The SSI site was not only efficient but had a fantastic workforce. An enormous amount of money was put in to bring it up to such standards. The site had everything that could have seen it playing a leading role in the steel industry. It is a tragedy that the site could not be supported to weather a few months of difficulty so that it could thrive in the future.

The site now stands looking over the town, cold and rusting, with its future tied up in faraway wrangles between an official receiver and faceless banks in south-east Asia that show no signs of progressing. I would be delighted if the Minister had anything—anything at all—to share with us about what steps the Government are taking to wrestle the site out of the hands of the Thai banks, so that the people and businesses of Teesside can start to rebuild, invest, regenerate and bring much-needed jobs to our area.

I believe that the future for steel on Teesside did not disappear entirely with SSI. Potential inward investors recognise Teesside as the preferred location for UK investment, with its unique availability of infrastructure, supply chains, innovation support and skilled workforce, and its transport benefits through its geographical location and existing assets. Our British steel beam mill is doing fantastic work and has a great workforce. If the Government are concerned about the future of the UK steel industry, they need still to be concerned about Teesside. I have met serious potential investors who are looking closely at it, but we need the former SSI site to be liberated. Although I have come here to bat for the wider steel industry in this country and to fight for the jobs and livelihoods of steelworkers around the country, I do so on behalf of Teesside, with an anger that cannot be repressed and a determination to achieve some form of future for steel in our area.

I turn now to some broader issues. The June referendum result has huge implications for every part of our economy, and businesses from all sectors will be seeking favourable terms in the Brexit negotiations. Last week’s Nissan announcement was fantastic news for the automotive industry, and I congratulate every single man and woman at the plant and in the supply chain who sent out the message to the world that the north-east is the best place to come invest and build the cutting-edge cars of the future. We have a fantastic workforce, terrific businesses in the supply chain and world-beating research and development.

It is important that Brexit does not become a game of who can shout the loudest. Our approach to an industrial strategy as we leave the EU must benefit everyone. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) is absolutely right that steel must have the same weight as the automotive industry in the decisions made about tariffs. The steel industry is still in crisis as it continues to battle with the challenges of global overcapacity, falling demand and uncompetitive trading conditions. Some progress has been made, but further reductions in steel jobs and production capacity are a possibility if action is not taken. The uncertainty of Brexit adds to the challenges.

We fought to secure this debate to ensure that tackling the risks to the future of steel remains a Government priority. Many of the industry’s asks remain unanswered. The primary importance of the Brexit negotiations cannot mean that other issues fall by the wayside. Many industry proposals to redress the huge imbalance in electricity costs for UK steel compared with our competitors have so far not been carried forward by the Government, and the delay has cost the sector an estimated £20 million since June. The Government have also not yet accepted the request for plant and machinery to be excluded from business rate calculations, meaning that French and German steelmakers continue to pay up to 10 times less in rates than their UK counterparts. I sincerely hope that the Government are considering that ahead of the autumn statement.

I have mentioned Heathrow’s important commitment to use British steel in the recently approved airport expansion. The same support for local materials must be present in other major construction and infrastructure projects, including High Speed 2 and 3, the new fleet of nuclear submarines and Hinkley Point. More than two thirds of UK steel exports went to the European Union in 2015. It is crucial that freedom to trade in the single market is maintained.

Steel is also a crucial foundation industry, underpinning the manufacturing sector as a whole, which itself relies on single market access for both the export of completed goods and the import of parts and raw materials. The assurances given to Nissan were positive for the steel industry, particularly as they are the biggest automotive customer of UK steel. However, the automotive sector has a large supply chain, and those companies need the same assurances that they will not be hit by tariffs when we have left the EU. It cannot be the case that the biggest companies who shout the loudest secure special protection.

On Teesside, every single one of our boroughs voted by more than 60% for Brexit. I spoke to lots of people during the referendum campaign who were motivated to vote leave by anger at the loss of our steelworks and the idea, wrongly pushed by the leave campaign, that inaction in Europe was to blame. They want the Government to be more active in their support for industry and to challenge unfair trading practices by China. When forming post-Brexit trade policies, the UK must implement robust anti-dumping measures to stop the flood of subsidised steel that has devastated the industry in the UK, not push the hands-off attitude suggested by one leading Brexit Minister, as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland exposed.

I also want to mention the importance of innovation to the future of the UK steel industry. Innovation is core to our domestic industry’s success. Such is the impact of British inventiveness that two thirds of steel produced here is in forms not invented 20 years ago. That is why I was appalled to learn earlier this year that officials at Innovate UK judged support for materials and metals not to be a priority for Britain. The implications of Tata’s announcement in March revealed the short-sightedness of that approach, so it is reassuring that the Government have overruled that decision. I would love it if the Minister agreed in this debate to the overwhelming evidence for a materials and metals catapult.

If we are to retain our lead, public support needs to reflect the research requirements of Britain’s increasingly fragmented industry and the principles of relentless continuous innovation by making long-term commitments advocated by UK steel experts, rather than Whitehall. I recommend to the Minister the work of the Materials Processing Institute in my constituency, which was established in 1944 to provide research to a then-fragmented industry similar to the one emerging again now.

The institute is Europe’s go-to steel and materials research expert, as my hon. Friend said, welcoming delegations from Germany, Sweden, China and elsewhere this summer to advise them on how to future-proof their domestic steel industries, which are wrestling with many of the same issues as ours. Just this week, the institute was approached by one of the world’s largest steel companies overseas to become its preferred research partner. Its proposals for long-term support to commercialise innovation have the support of Tata Steels Speciality Steels, British Steel, Celsa Steel, Liberty Steel, Albion Steel, Acenta Steel, the British Stainless Steel Association and UK Steel. I would be delighted to welcome the Minister to discuss the matter further and see the institute’s world-class facilities for himself.

Bridging all these issues is the need for a long-term industrial strategy that supports British industry and manufacturing to be competitive in the global market by creating an environment for investment, innovation and, ultimately, the creation of more highly skilled and well paid jobs. The assurances given to Nissan and the proposal for a 25% Government stake in Tata UK steel assets are two examples of a more interventionist Government prepared to support British industry, which is good to see. It is a marked improvement on their complacency and inaction during the SSI crisis in Redcar; this must be the start of a more proactive approach to industry. UK steel is still in crisis, but with the right help, its future both nationally and on Teesside can be secured.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Diolch yn fawr. Nawr te, siaradwch, Stephen Kinnock.