North Sea Energy

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Minister was right to remind us that the North sea is a mature basin, she was right to remind us that 70,000 jobs have been lost there in the last 10 years, and she was right to praise the highly skilled engineers who have made such a contribution in the North sea and to the country. She mentioned the skills passport, and said that the Government were making progress with the industry in finding alternatives in the jobs transition. The Select Committee has heard, a number of times, evidence that one of the challenges is the fact that pay in the North sea is significantly higher than pay in equivalent jobs in the renewable sector, and offshore wind in particular. What, at this stage, are the Minister�s thoughts on how we can make pay more attractive for workers moving from oil and gas into renewables?

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the Select Committee, which is very important. As he knows, for a long time we have been a bit stuck in trying to set up a passport system because of the slightly different skills and qualifications in each industry and the need to bring them together. The Government became involved to try to ensure that we could bridge that gap and enable people to make the transition. Oil and gas workers are highly skilled and greatly in demand, and, as my hon. Friend says, they are paid a good wage. We need to work with the new offshore wind companies; we like to see union recognition, and we like to see good salaries for people doing those jobs as well. There will be other jobs that people can go into. The plan is to help people make the transition rather than leaving them adrift as the last Government did.

Stellantis Luton

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I genuinely appreciate the question coming from that perspective, but this is not just about NGOs. We have been in close contact with big business about charging infrastructure, and I understand the importance of that. I want to make it clear that that is why we are not undermining transition, but are ambitious with the industry about where we will get to. Nothing we propose as a Government will itself reduce or limit the deployment of electric vehicles. What I am talking about, and what we are talking about as a Government, is looking at how, for instance, the flexibilities in the system operate. We are doing everything we can, alongside industry, to get to that destination.

I want nothing to do with the approach of the previous Government, which had a really detrimental effect on the industry, as it will tell any hon. Member very clearly. I am listening to what it means to have this change in economic circumstances in relation to private demand for electric vehicles, and I want to work with industry to get to the place or the destination that I think we both strongly support.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The previous Government were warned before the election, including multiple times in this Chamber, about the damage they were doing to the car industry. The constant changes of policy on net zero, missing targets on the roll-out of charge points and the failure to even allocate the rapid charging fund have all undermined consumer confidence. Will my right hon. Friend make sure that, as soon as possible after his review, he balances the needs of manufacturers of cars and vans with the needs of consumers?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I believe my hon. Friend’s analysis is absolutely right, and he and I were in the Chamber on several occasions when that case was made to the previous Government. The intervention from the former Prime Minister was not based on any kind of business or economic logic, but was an attempt to create some sort of wedge issue before the election. Frankly, that did them absolutely no good, because people saw straight through it. I say again that to change the deadline, but keep the existing thresholds in place up until 2030 was the worst of all worlds—it really did have a negative impact on consumer confidence—and we will never repeat those mistakes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

I say very gently to the hon. Gentleman that if he and his party are determined to oppose the measures we took in the Budget, including on employers’ national insurance contributions, they need to set out how they would fund the extra investment in the NHS, the investment in the automotive and aerospace sectors, and the measures to protect and raise living standards.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

8. What assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the outcomes of the international investment summit.

[The Minister for Industry (Sarah Jones)]

We held, as we have said, an international investment summit on 14 October, 100 days after we formed the new Government. We secured £63 billion of investment, which is twice the level of the previous Government’s investment summit. The investment will create high-quality, high-skilled, well-paid jobs across the country, and represents a huge vote of confidence in this new Government.

[Bill Esterson]

As my hon. Friend quite rightly said, the Labour party is now the party of business without any question. Does she agree that the measures committed to in yesterday’s Budget on clean energy, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen—which were backed up, by the way, with a commitment from a Canadian investor of another £1.8 billion in offshore wind—show how much this Government are in tune with the business community? We are attracting investment and building on the investment summit, and we will deliver jobs for our constituents and our communities up and down the country.

[Sarah Jones]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. I also agree with the former Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, in his article yesterday. I quote:

“Conservatives, like myself, should be honest”

and

“Reeves is cleaning up our mess”.

Port Talbot Transition Project

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that this has long been a campaigning issue of mine. I have talked repeatedly about the relationship between decarbonisation and the potential for deindustrialisation, and the policy environment in this country not being fit for purpose to deliver that. On the wholesale electricity prices of energy-intensive industries, for most of the time under the previous Government the UK’s prices were wildly uncompetitive. There was some movement, as he knows, with the supercharger policy near the end. More can be done, and there is an even more exciting longer-term position that we could get to. He will have to wait for the Budget, and maybe the spending review, for some more detail on that, but this issue has to be an essential priority for the competitiveness of the UK. We have to recognise that a lot of the industries that we will transition to are very heavy users of electricity—not just clean steel, but for instance gigafactories. This will be a key tool in the future that we have to do better on than we have in the past 14 years.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this improved deal. I know how hard he has worked over many years, not just in the short term before and since the election, as he referred to in his answer to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith). On procurement, will there be a presumption in favour of using British-produced steel both in nationally significant projects in green energy and in defence? That would be in stark contrast to what the previous Government did, in particular with the fleet solid support contract.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thank my hon. Friend for all his support during our years in opposition, when we tackled many of these issues. He asks about procurement. Of course, anything that we do as a Government will be consistent with international trade rules and our commitment to open markets and multilateralism. There is a legitimate way in which social value can be considered in Government procurement. Given the value and quality of what we produce in the UK, I am very confident in procurement playing a bigger part in the future of the steel industry. On defence and the blast furnaces, he will know that neither Scunthorpe nor Port Talbot plays a direct role in some of the key Ministry of Defence contracts. Sheffield Forgemasters plays more of a role in that. There are more capacities and capabilities that we can look to as a country for opportunities in the future.

UK Steel Manufacturing

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Lady for a very sensible and thoughtful list of questions. We will be putting the Industrial Strategy Council on a statutory footing, which is important. The points she makes about decarbonisation and support for the industry are really important. The previous Government supported the aims of dealing with the climate crisis and the need for decarbonisation, but they did not put in place any strategy to help anybody do anything on that front. We need a proper industrial strategy and, alongside that, a proper industrial decarbonisation strategy. How will our heavy industries decarbonise in a way that does not de-industrialise and does not mean that they shut up shop and go elsewhere? How will we make sure that we enable all these industries to thrive? The hon. Lady is right to say that it is not just about the steel industry. We are looking at a much broader range of industries by sector and by geography, to work out the best way to get this done in a way that protects jobs and protects our industry.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Steel is a strategically important industry for this country, as my hon. Friend has made very clear, and I welcome her commitment that decarbonisation must not mean de-industrialisation. We must avoid the mistakes of the past. One of the mistakes made by the previous Government was the delay in developing grid capacity and grid connections. How are this Government working with British Steel and Port Talbot to make sure that the grid capacity and connections are in place to enable electric arc furnace production to be started as soon as possible?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head, as I would expect him to. We face many challenges, but the grid is at the heart and soul of so many of them. When we met industry representatives in opposition, it was top of the list for everybody, and my hon. Friend knows that many companies are saying to us, “We’ve been told we can’t get a grid connection until the late 2030s.” This issue is a priority for us, and we are tackling it and working at pace. We have a whole range of policies to speed up the grid connections, to prioritise what we deal with first, and to work with the companies involved to make sure that we are going at pace. Steel is incredibly crucial, particularly in Scunthorpe, and we have to get it right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

Steel is vital to the UK, but we know that the industry needs to decarbonise for a sustainable future. The Paris agreement made it clear that the sector had to reduce its global emissions by 93% by 2050. The Government are actively engaging with the sector on how best to achieve that, but decarbonisation pathways for specific sites will be commercial decisions for individual companies. Industrial sectors, including steel companies, can bid into Government funds worth hundreds of millions of pounds to help them go green. As I mentioned, we have done a huge amount to support energy intensive industries.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The UK is the only major steel-producing nation where production is falling, but the Minister and her colleagues have been telling us for months that they cannot guarantee the use of UK-made steel in Government contracts, especially in the military. The thing is that the steel producers say that they can make whatever their customer asks by changing the production line. Will the Minister confirm that the reason we have a problem with steel in this country is the Government’s refusal to view it as a strategically important industry? The Conservatives’ sticking-plaster politics have failed steelworkers, as we have seen at Port Talbot.

[Ms Ghani]

I fundamentally disagree with the question—well, it was more of a statement. I made it clear when I took on this role that we would assess the level of steel in procurement contracts, and we have put together the steel procurement policy note, which will address how much steel is being procured in our contracts in the UK. We are doing a huge amount to ensure that the different types of steel that are needed are produced. We know how valuable the sector is, which is why we provided support with high energy costs and why we have a decarbonisation budget that the industry can link into. I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s proposition.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Minister said that she recognises the vital role that steel plays in this country, but the UK is the only country in the G20 where steel production is falling. It is also the only G7 country whose Government do not insist on using domestically produced steel in defence contracts. Meanwhile, UK steel producers pay 62% more than their German counterparts for electricity. Labour’s £3 billion green steel plan will give our industry the bright future that other countries are offering their steel sectors. Labour believes in our steel; why do this Government not?

[Ms Ghani]

I am not sure where Labour Members will get the money to fund that programme of work. I have not even got to the end of reading this paper but they will probably U-turn by the time I do, so I am not sure how sensible it is going to be. We have provided more than £1 billion for decarbonisation, unprecedented support to help with energy costs, and just recently, there was fantastic news from Celsa, when it was able to repay a Government loan of £30 million that we provided to them, sensibly spending taxpayers’ money. There is and always has been support available. When it comes to procurement, it is absolutely right that we do everything we can to make sure that we have UK firms procuring UK steel.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

People in Scunthorpe, Rotherham and Port Talbot know how important steel is for their communities. We Labour Members understand how important it is, for communities and for the green transition. The UK is the only G20 country in which steel production is falling, but when asked about the survival of this strategically important sector, the Business Secretary said:

“Nothing is ever a given.”

Is that because the British steel industry is not safe in her hands?

[Ms Ghani]

I do not know where the hon. Member got that quote from, but the British steel industry is very safe in our hands. Let me explain why. There has been over £800 million of support for energy costs, and over £1.5 billion to support competitive funds to ensure that the sector can decarbonise. We have done a huge amount of work with our steel sector. Colleagues from across the House will agree that in every meeting, whether it is with the unions or the sector, we are on the side of the steel sector and steelworkers, including when challenging commercial decisions are taken.