Shipbuilding: Use of British Steel for Royal Navy

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point about skills. This will certainly be a major part of our refresh strategy, which, as I said, will be published soon. Having our own skills in this country, particularly in digital and engineering, is extremely important so that we have the right skills to build the right ships faster, using the skills we have.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

If the Government are not prepared to develop a border tax for all the carbon emissions coming into this country, which we do not account for—that is why we have all this false accounting about how we have reduced our carbon emissions—the very least they could do is to make sure they know the quantity of the carbon emissions coming in and start putting some sort of monetary amount on this, so that we know the cost of importing.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. The Government recognise the importance of research and development into the UK steel sector’s transition to low-carbon steel production. She will know that we have provided over £600 million in relief to make electricity costs more competitive, and created the £315 million industrial energy transformation fund to support high energy use businesses. There is more I could go into, but the noble Baroness will know that we are on this.