Steel Tariffs: Northern Ireland Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business and Trade
Carla Lockhart
Main Page: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)Department Debates - View all Carla Lockhart's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
Steel Tariffs: Northern Ireland
Carla Lockhart Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Chris Bryant
If the hon. Member wants to write to me about how HMRC or the support is lacking, I would be happy to respond. Again, as I said, if he had been in the House last Thursday, he could have taken up the opportunity—[Interruption.] I made a statement in the House last Thursday on precisely all these issues, and he would have been able to take up the opportunity yesterday afternoon, as many MPs did. It is difficult to arrange precisely that same set of meetings again, but I am happy to ensure that officials speak directly to the companies he talked about so that they get the best information they need.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The Minister talks about protecting the steel industry, and we can all agree with that, but steel users in Northern Ireland have been left with confusion, uncertainty and rising costs, and price gouging from suppliers is already happening. Whether he likes to admit it or not, Northern Ireland is collateral damage and often caught between UK trade policy and EU diktats, so we can understand the confusion.
Despite repeated requests, the Minister has not met businesses from Northern Ireland—indeed, I got a commitment in the House a couple of weeks ago and we are still waiting on that to happen. He needs to allow his officials to meet urgently with the industry and speak directly to it—not to trade bodies or even to us—because the industry and these businesses know exactly the answers they need to get from the Government. Will he organise that with immediate effect?
Chris Bryant
First, I note that the hon. Member’s first sentence started, “Yes, we want to protect steel production, but”—yet nobody wants us to take the measures that we believe are necessary and proportionate to do that. That is one of the problems here: of course there are trade-offs. We want to protect steel production in the UK, which we believe is essential to our national security and to having a strong defence sector into the future, and that is why we are taking these measures.
I am not sure whether I can meet every single business. We have been rigorous about pursuing every single meeting that I have committed to. If I have got this wrong, I apologise to the hon. Member, but, again, if she had been in the Chamber on Thursday, she could have come to the meeting yesterday afternoon when lots of people took up the specific issues relating to their businesses.
If it is all right, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a correction. I said earlier that 1.5 megatonnes were being allowed under the EU measure; it is 1.05 megatonnes.