Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of Public Procurement Note 04/23: Procuring Steel in Government Contracts, published 11 April 2023, on the domestic steel industry.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The updated Public Procurement Note (PPN) 04/23 implements most of the recommendations produced by the Steel Procurement Taskforce, which is a joint effort between Government and the steel industry to help the sector best position itself for success in public contracts.
PPN 04/23 reflects changes to the project appraisal and procurement policy landscape and commercial best practice while clarifying the scope of reporting requirements on steel origin data. It also enhances our procurement data collection methodology, and it emphasises the importance of early engagement between procurers, producers, and suppliers, to help make future opportunities more visible.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will take steps with her Cabinet colleagues to ensure that businesses in the UK ceramics industry benefit from adequate (a) local energy network capacity and (b) infrastructure connections.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The electricity networks infrastructure is regulated to ensure adequate grid capacity through the price control. For the low-voltage electricity network price control, Ofgem has allowed £22.2bn for networks to invest, including £3.1bn for network upgrades to allow for adequate grid capacity to meet anticipated demand
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he plans to take steps to establish a royal commission on Industrial Strategy to determine a cross-party strategy for the manufacturing sector.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
We have no plans to establish a Royal Commission on Industrial Strategy. The Government is focused on providing a competitive business environment to stimulate manufacturing growth.
Delivering economic growth in key sectors remains a priority. The Chancellor has identified five key growth sectors for the UK, including Advanced Manufacturing. The Government has announced a £500 million per year package of support for 20,000 research and development (R&D) intensive businesses through changes to R&D tax credits, alongside 12 new investment zones. Earlier this month, The Department for Business and Trade announced regulatory measures that will reduce burdensome red tape and tailor rules to suit the UK economy, potentially saving employers around £1 billion yearly.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will make a comparative assessment of the (a) availability and (b) extraction cost for (i) land-based and (ii) sea bed critical minerals.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
There is no deep-sea mining currently happening in areas beyond national jurisdictions.
The Government commissioned an independent review from the British Geological Survey, the National Oceanography Centre and Heriot-Watt University, to support informed decision making regarding potential future development of mineral resources in the deep sea.
Chapter Four of that review addresses Economics, and the full document (published in October 2022) is available here:
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/deep-sea-mining-evidence-review-published/
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment she has made of the economic impact of deep sea mining in the period since 2015.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Government commissioned an independent review from the British Geological Survey, the National Oceanography Centre and Heriot-Watt University. The terms of reference included a review of minerals contained in seafloor deposits and how this compares to terrestrial resources, with discussion on future resource potential and knowledge gaps. The review was published in October 2022 and is available here:
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/deep-sea-mining-evidence-review-published/
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure the UK steel industry is able to attract private investment in green technologies and decarbonisation in the context of the US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU Green Deal.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The Government remains committed to a decarbonised and sustainable steel sector and is working closely with industry to support its decarbonisation options. Industrial sectors (including steel) have already been able to bid into competitive funds worth more than £1 billion to support energy efficiency, innovation and decarbonisation.
We welcome the EU’s ambition on climate and the emphasis placed on open trade and support for developing countries. However, the global challenges we face cannot be resolved through unilateral action. We support EU proposals for collaboration, including proposals for Net Zero Resilience Projects, and we are interested in exploring these and other collaboration options to enhance security of supply across Europe.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the procurement of UK-made steel is prioritised in infrastructure projects financially supported by the Government.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
As a member of the World Trade Organisation’s plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), the UK cannot set procurement targets for public projects or any measures which favour, or indirectly discriminate in favour of, UK products or suppliers.
However, we have worked with the sector to progress the recommendations of the Steel Procurement Taskforce, published on 22 February 2022, looking at how government and industry can work together to help the steel sector best position itself for success in public contracts. Most of the recommendations have been addressed through the updated Public Procurement Note (PPN), published in April 2023, which reflects changes to commercial best practice, commercial policy and business case appraisals while clarifying the scope of reporting requirements on steel origin data.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment she has made of the impact of increasing carbon costs on the steel industry.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
I refer the Hon Member for Sefton Central to the answer I gave him on 2 May 2023, UIN 182550.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will make it her policy to develop a strategy to help the steel industry transition to net zero.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The 2021 Net Zero Strategy reaffirms our commitment to continue to work with the steel industry on decarbonisation.
We continue to support the sector in its decarbonisation efforts and to consider the implications of the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee; to ‘set targets for ore-based steelmaking to reach near-zero emissions by 2035’.
Decarbonisation pathways will be a commercial decision for individual companies. We are working closely with companies to support them as they make those commercial decisions.
Asked by: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether she plans to (a) re-establish and (b) give statutory status to the Industrial Strategy Council.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
In March 2021, the Government decided that the Industrial Strategy Council would no longer be needed to monitor the impact of the Industrial Strategy, following its transition to the then Plan for Growth.
Delivering economic growth in key sectors remains a priority. The Chancellor has identified five key growth sectors for the UK: Digital Technology, Green Industries, Life Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing and Creative Industries. The government has announced a £500 million per year package of support for 20,000 research and development (R&D) intensive businesses through changes to R&D tax credits, alongside 12 new investment zones. Earlier this month, the Department for Business and Trade announced regulatory measures that will reduce burdensome red tape and tailor rules to suit the UK economy, potentially saving employers around £1 billion yearly.