UK Steel Industry
Debate between Caroline Flint and Richard Fuller
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), but it is unfortunate that his speech veered towards the critical, rather than the constructive. However, he can be forgiven, because he is one of many MPs speaking in this debate with a significant steelmaking presence in his constituency.
My constituency is not one of those constituencies, but in Parliament we talk as one community for all our constituencies, and discuss how different constituencies and communities can reach out to communities that are severely affected when things go wrong in an industry or because of a natural disaster. Let me repeat that the issues in the steel industry are not going to go away. We face many years of brutal competition in the global steel industry. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his team can, over the coming months, successfully find long-term solutions for steelmaking plants in Motherwell, Scunthorpe and Port Talbot, that will be a significant achievement in these times.
As someone who does not have a steelworks in his constituency, I believe it is important to discuss what the rules ought to be on what is fair for communities across the country. The OECD in its report last year on the steel industry said:
“In competitive economies, it is the responsibility of the steel companies themselves to identify ways to adapt to changing market conditions.”
We have to accept that many steel companies in the UK have failed to do that. The OECD goes on to say:
“The role of governments should be to allow market mechanisms to work properly and avoid measures that artificially support steelmaking capacity.”
The OECD understands the ways in which developed and developing economies can prosper, and it is important that the Government bear those words in mind. It is also important—and I should like to hear from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise on this in her closing speech—that while we prepare for the best we also prepare for the worst. I should like to know what the Government are doing to prepare support for Port Talbot if all their best efforts to save the steelworks do not come to fruition. May I make one point from my memory of the coal-mining communities in the 1980s? The Government can never give enough support to communities that rely on a single industry.
Richard Fuller
No, this is a lesson that we all need to learn. [Interruption.] If the right hon. Lady stops chuntering, I can make a point with which she might agree. Lessons have been learned from the 1980s, and in communities with a significant concentration of industries the Government always have to do more than they think they have to do.
Duties have been mentioned a number of times, so let us clear up the lesser duty rule. The point, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, is whether the duty is effective. We follow the lesser duty rule, and in the three instances that he mentioned, import penetration has all but disappeared. Giving up the lesser duty rule is not about stopping more steel coming in, but about raising prices on those products. If a 14% tariff is increased to 50% when imports are eliminated that will result in inflationary pressure from the steel industry to other markets, and might be regarded as supporting subsidies from one part of the steel industry to another. It is not right to give up the lesser duty rule, which is the underpinning of the World Trade Organisation, and to take the US approach of zeroing in on tariffs.
On the 267% tariff that America imposed on Chinese cold rolled flat, it was part of the same US decision that imposed a 31% tariff on Tata steel. Tit for tat on trade tariffs does not work.
Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency
Debate between Caroline Flint and Richard Fuller(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Caroline Flint
Absolutely, and the question is this: what have the Government been doing for the past two and a half years? [Interruption.] Well, for a start, 2 million homes received a Warm Front grant under Labour. What is this Government’s record? Let us talk about that. Even families who have been accepted as eligible for help under Warm Front are facing huge delays. Despite being asked parliamentary questions, so far the Government have refused to reveal the average waiting time, but yesterday morning on “Daybreak” I learnt of a single mum called Susannah Hickling who was forced to wait nine months.
From asking other parliamentary questions, I have uncovered a huge backlog. In response to a question on 18 December, the Government were forced to admit that of nearly 22,000 successful applications for Warm Front grants—fewer than we have had in previous times—just 6,000 have resulted in any work, meaning that nearly 16,000 families who have been told that they will receive help are still waiting, in the middle of winter. I understand that the Government are now saying that the backlog is only 14,000. That is hardly a sign of success. If that is the case, I hope that the Secretary of State will update the House on how many households are waiting and when they can expect the work to be done.
On top of that, a further 9,000 people have applied for assistance but are still anxiously waiting to know whether they will get any help before Warm Front closes for good. Notwithstanding the insulation or energy efficiency measures that have finally been installed, the amount of help that people end up receiving has been quietly slashed by two thirds compared with last year. This year, the average level of grant provided under Warm Front is just £997, but last year it was more than three times as much at more than £3,000. In short, we have a scheme in its dying days under which people are receiving less help than ever before, with a massive backlog and thousands of families being given the cold shoulder.
Disgraceful though that is, it gets worse. Despite all the hardship—the cuts in funding, the reduced help, the delays—the Government have been forced to come clean and reveal that more than half the budget is predicted to remain unspent. In answer to a parliamentary question from me on 12 December, the Government confirmed that, from a total budget of £100 million this financial year, just £34.8 million has spent, while another £15.1 million has been committed but not yet spent. That means that more than £50 million that this Government chose to set aside to help low-income households through Warm Front might not even be spent at all. Given that the average Warm Front grant this year has been just under £1,000, that means that some 50,000 low-income or vulnerable households could have received help but will not, unless the scheme is extended and Saturday’s deadline is pushed back.
Let me ask the Secretary of State a straightforward question. What possible justification can there be for shutting down a scheme and turning away people in need when only half the budget has been spent? If he cannot answer that question, will he not see sense today and agree to extend the Warm Front scheme until the entire budget has been spent or committed to expenditure? No one is asking for more money or for the budget to be increased. We are simply saying that if the Government have chosen to set aside £100 million for Warm Front this year, they should at least ensure that this support reaches the people it was intended to reach.
Caroline Flint
It is indeed a disgrace. I do not say this without thinking about it first, but I think this Government have basically driven the scheme into the ground.
It makes it even more unforgiveable that we find ourselves in exactly the same situation as last year, when, despite repeated warnings, the Government had an underspend in the previous financial year of £50.6 million in the Warm Front scheme. Instead of that money helping people to reduce their energy use and cut their bills, it went back to the Treasury—presumably to help to fill the holes in the Chancellor’s borrowing targets. Why were Ministers not on the case? They have known since October 2010 that Warm Front was due to end this Saturday. After last year’s debacle, if I were a Minister I would have been all over this issue and not waiting for another car crash. Indeed, if I can access that information through parliamentary questions, Ministers should have known about the underspend, the backlog and the thousands of applications still waiting to be decided on. If they knew there was a problem, why were they not on the sofas of “Daybreak” or “This Morning”, or out in the country promoting the scheme and ensuring that people knew the help was available? The Government are keen on performance-related pay; perhaps they should start with the pay of Ministers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
Richard Fuller
I am extraordinarily grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. Perhaps my question will move her on to something more constructive and what we can do to improve some of the schemes. She has mentioned the Warm Front scheme and some of the problems with the backlog, but the Public Accounts Committee found that only 35% of the households that were likely to be fuel-poor would be eligible. Does she not think that it behoves us to look at improvements to the scheme? What would she recommend constructively that we could do better?
Caroline Flint
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I recommend. There is £50 million in the Warm Front budget. The Government should delay the closure of the scheme and extend it so that more people can get what they need. Indeed, only 22 people in his constituency got Warm Front in the last year. Is he happy with that? Is he satisfied that £50 million will go back to the Treasury, rather than helping people in Bedford and every other part of this country? I suggest that he put that in his press release for his local paper, explaining why he will sit on £50 million before letting it disappear from the communities in Bedford and everywhere else in the country.
Sometimes there are Opposition motions whose purpose is to express a clear dividing line between us and the Government; sometimes they will contain policies or proposals with which we know the Government will not agree; on the odd occasion they will even be used to make a political point or two. In preparing today’s motion, however, we focused on common-sense solutions to some of the problems relating to Warm Front, the green deal and the obligations of the energy companies, in order to ensure that our energy efficiency schemes deliver, that help reaches those who need it most and that, even in these difficult times, people who are struggling are not needlessly left out in the cold when money is available and has been committed to help them. It is in that spirit that I urge all hon. Members to support a green deal that is a good deal, tougher action on the energy companies if they fail to meet their obligations, and the extension of Warm Front until its entire budget has been spent. I commend the motion to the House.