British Steel

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord up to a point. I am sure he would be the first to accept that, in the modern world that we live in, it is frequently wise to buy certain things from abroad because other people can produce them better or more cheaply. Obviously, one always has to take into account the strategic considerations that the noble Lord raises. But there is no point trying to produce absolutely everything oneself, probably at greater cost and less effectively.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend the Minister care to comment on the impact of the private equity capital structure games that are often played, with deep discount bonds being bought up and the ultimate owners ending up with a profit even when a company of such strategic importance ultimately fails? Can he assure us that the Government will look into the ways in which capital structure is used, particularly because the steelworkers had been doing such a marvellous job of turning around an industry that had failed in the past and was now operating extremely well? Indeed, we have other sectors in this country which are at risk, more directly perhaps, from a no-deal Brexit, and may have similar ownership structures, which we need to look into urgently.

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend makes an interesting point. My right honourable friend would be the first to say that we want to learn any lessons possible from what has happened here with Greybull’s purchase of this company, which was then renamed British Steel, some three years ago. It is a good company and I am glad that my noble friend pays tribute to its employees. It has made improvements. As I understand it, the company was returning to profitability. My noble friend goes on to talk about wider lessons to be learned about the structure of companies such as Greybull. All I can say is that we will learn what lessons we can.