Ceramics Industry

Debate between Chris McDonald and Harriett Baldwin

Monday 6th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Chris McDonald)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate. I am sure that those observing from the Public Gallery will have seen that there is huge support in Parliament for the ceramics industry, for its communities and for its jobs. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for securing the debate, and to Hayley for organising the petition. I am sure that many of the petitioners will have been following the debate and will have heard the support for the sector from Members, as well as from Ceramics UK and the GMB trade union.

There were a number of speeches on several issues, and I will endeavour to address them all, but if I could sum up the debate in one line, it was probably put most succinctly by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee): “Thank you for the £120 million —can I have some more?” To which I have a short answer: “You’re welcome—and I want to do more.” I will talk a bit about what that “more” might be, and address some of those issues, because I do recognise that more needs to be done.

It is important to recognise the pride of the communities we have heard about, because the ceramics industry is integral to the history and heritage of so many communities throughout the country. Staffordshire is the home of the ceramics industry, but it spans the whole country: we heard that it includes the china clay pits in Cornwall and extends right up to communities in the north of Scotland. There is also a diverse range of subsectors: bricks, pipes, tiles and tableware, of course, and advanced technical ceramics, with many applications in sectors such as energy, defence, medical and technology. I am most grateful today for the application of ceramics in air conditioning filtration systems—I thank the industry for that.

The ceramics industry is represented in some great traditional and heritage tableware. It is very much possible to value things not only for their utility but for their beauty, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher). I am quite a fan of traditional Staffordshire stoneware. I also have a very special Dunoon mug with a Union Jack on it, and I want to let those in the Public Gallery know that I use it every morning for my first cup of tea.

We heard about bricks from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, and from the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds), about the lifetime assessment of bricks. To be clear, I am very aware of the disadvantage in respect of bricks with a short lifetime assessment. I have bricks in my house that are over 200 years old and still doing sterling service. I am interested to hear more representations from Members throughout the House on that issue.

We have of course talked a lot about ceramics, but my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) made a much wider point about manufacturing in her area of the east midlands. The issues facing ceramics are also faced by manufacturing industries around the country: high energy costs, the import of cheap goods and challenges with decarbonisation. The challenges have been exacerbated by the geopolitical instability due to the invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in the middle east, which has put pressure on our energy prices.

The ceramics industry has continued to demonstrate resilience, and the people who work in the industry have demonstrated resilience, but I was very sad recently to learn of the closure of and job losses at Denby Pottery. I worked closely on that issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), and she represented the community so well in this place. There was also the closure of a tunnel kiln at Armitage Shanks. I pass on my personal sympathies to all the workers, families and local communities that were impacted by events at those firms, as well as at Royal Stafford and Heraldic Pottery.

Manufacturing has now ceased at Denby Pottery, and the administrators were unable to find a buyer. My officials at the Department for Business and Trade worked diligently with the administrators to take the process forward. The Government’s priority now is to ensure that all affected workers are given the support they need. I commend Fran, Kate and Daizy and wish them every success with their new venture. I realise that my words may sound somewhat clinical to the workers and communities who are so rightly proud of Denby, so I want to take this opportunity to say how sorrowful I am that Denby has closed and that those workers, and others in the local community, can no longer work there. That is why I am so determined that we will fix some of the problems with the underpinning of the business environment, not only for ceramics but for other parts of industry.

So many Members mentioned the ceramic industry support scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley thanked many people involved in the creation of that scheme—our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer played such an important role—but she was not able to thank herself, so I thank her on behalf of us all. I wonder whether the scheme would have been brought forward so speedily were it not for her work. It is important to recognise the scheme as a great vote of confidence by the Government in the ceramics industry. We are determined to work with the industry to provide support with decarbonisation, and I thank all my parliamentary colleagues who have advocated for it.

A number of Members raised issues relating to the design of the support scheme. My hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) raised issues around eligibility, consultees and so on. I reassure them that we are determined that the scheme will have the maximum eligibility to enable firms to win support for both capital and operating expenses around their decarbonisation, and to make that decarbonisation makes sense as well.

This is perhaps an opportune time to firmly put down some of the myths around Government policy pushing up the price of electricity. Of course, that is not the case at all. After the previous Government, the UK was left in a position of high electricity costs, both for industry and for domestic consumers, because our electricity market is dependent on the price of gas.

The cheapest form of electricity we have is solar, the second cheapest is onshore wind and the third cheapest is offshore wind. That is why the Government’s clean power 2030 mission is designed specifically to give this country a strategic and competitive advantage in electricity price from the 2030s onwards. It is particularly challenging to manage the period from now to 2030, because during that period our electricity is still set to a great extent by the gas price. For economic reasons alone, and to ensure that we have a competitive business environment, we need to work through that.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

I want to ask the Minister about the auction price that the Energy Secretary set today for offshore wind, which I understand is £120 per megawatt-hour. That sounds very high to me.

[Chris McDonald]

This replays some of the conversations we have had on the Floor of the House. Ultimately, it is important to remember that the prices we are quoting take into account both the capital and operating costs. Our existing gas fleet would also require renewal if it was to continue beyond the mid-2030s, so there would be a capital and operating cost element for that as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris McDonald and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 21st May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I will carry on with the same theme, because it is clear from all sides that there are real issues with the element of the steel strategy that imposes a 50% tariff on 1 July. It is affecting manufacturing businesses up and down this country, and it is being done in a way that not only threatens manufacturing jobs, but increases inflationary pressures. Can the Minister tell the House what impact assessment he has done on the effect of these measures on inflation and on jobs?

[Chris McDonald]

I reiterate the point that the action that the Government have taken has been to correct an issue in the market. We have taken wide representation. In fact, we amended the list as a result of some of that representation. The shadow Minister’s point about inflation goes exactly back to the point that I made earlier. This country cannot be in a position where we say that we are prepared to buy the cheapest thing, wherever it is made in the world, to the sacrifice of our own industry. We cannot allow foreign Governments’ industrial policies to drive our own industrial policy. That is why we have taken this action—similar action to that taken by the EU. It comes down to a question of whose side are you on. Are you on the side of British industry, like the Government, or are you on the side of overseas industry? That seems to be the case being prosecuted by the Opposition.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris McDonald and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 12th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

There was a new private sector investor in the Royal Mail last year. As we heard yesterday in the House, the regulator has let the universal service obligation slip, so will the Minister update the House on how his colleague’s meeting with the regulator went yesterday?

[Chris McDonald]

The Minister responsible for the Post Office and the Royal Mail, my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall), is sitting beside me. Just yesterday, he spent 90 minutes in the House answering questions from Members who have had problems with the service across the whole of the country; I have seen such problems in my constituency as well. The Government are clearly not happy with the level of service from the Royal Mail, and the shadow Minister will hear a full response to Question 15, when my hon. Friend will stand at the Dispatch Box and tell her everything that she needs to know about that particular meeting.

Critical Minerals Strategy

Debate between Chris McDonald and Harriett Baldwin

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I will definitely be paying close attention. I call the shadow Minister.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Critical minerals are vital to our national security. In submarines, missiles, jet fighters and radar, we need critical minerals for our national defence. Critical minerals in electric vehicles and wind turbines are also vital for clean energy generation.

It is striking, however, that the Government’s critical minerals strategy does not mention China once. That is despite that fact that China, which has built an almost global monopoly on processing, recently imposed export licence requirements on seven rare earth elements: samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium. Can the Minister say whether the Department has made any assessment of China’s dominance in the critical minerals market and whether the Government consider it a threat?

The UK “Critical Minerals Strategy” document seems to have been written in a bit of a rush. It is sloppy, riddled with spelling mistakes and has inconsistent statistics and errors in geography. Why should industry trust a Government who cannot even proofread? For instance, according to the Cobalt Institute, current global demand is 200,000 tonnes and is set to grow by 14% a year, meaning that by 2030, the global demand for cobalt is forecast to be 438,000 tonnes. In the Government’s document, however, UK domestic demand will be 636,000 tonnes in 2030. Could the Minister kindly proofread the document and place a corrected version of the whole strategy in the Library?

The strategy recognises the impact that high energy prices have had on the critical minerals industry, but under Labour, our energy bills are up. Why do the Government not just adopt our cheap power plan to cut electricity bills by 20%? Oil and gas are key inputs in the production of critical minerals. What impact does the Minister believe this Government’s policy of closing down the North sea will have on domestic critical minerals production?

Under Labour, foreign direct investment into this country has fallen to an all-time low. How do the Government expect to build a critical minerals industry if no one is investing? Can the Minister therefore today rule out any tax rises heading towards this industry on Wednesday? The national insurance jobs tax and the unemployment Bill are set to cost the critical minerals industry £50 million, which is exactly the same figure as the funding pledged by the Government today—the Chancellor’s jobs tax and the 330-page job-killing Employment Rights Bill are costing businesses £1,000 per worker, and there are a total of 50,000 people employed in the critical minerals industry. Is this a recognition from the Minister that the Government’s tax rises are crippling British industry?

In summary, the first duty of any Government is to keep our country safe. Refreshing the critical minerals strategy is an essential part of that mission. Given the scale of global competition and the risks of supply chain disruption, does the Minister agree that there is still a great deal of work to do to ensure that Britain is secure in the critical minerals we need for our future?

[Chris McDonald]

I start by saying that if there are indeed any spelling or factual errors in the document, I offer my apologies to the House; that is clearly unacceptable, and I will ensure that any corrections are made and that a new copy is laid before the House. I thank the hon. Lady for bringing those matters to my attention.

On the substantive issues raised by the shadow spokesperson, the point about China is clearly very important. The Government are well aware of China’s dominance of critical minerals supply chains. In some areas—particularly in processing, as she will be aware—China controls 70% to 90% of the market. Our critical minerals strategy is designed precisely to provide greater diversity of supply, both at home, through primary and secondary extraction where we have the materials to do that, and through our G7, G20, NATO partners and others, as I mentioned in my statement. A critical point to note is that the supply of secondary raw materials is a natural resource that the UK has. We currently offer those resources for processing overseas, which are then returned to the UK at considerable cost. A focus of this strategy is ensuring that we have those resources in the UK.

The shadow spokesperson mentions electricity bills. I think that my statement is best read in conjunction with the written statement on the British industrial competitiveness scheme, which aims to reduce electricity bills for industry by 25% compared with current levels—a reduction of £40 per MWh. The British industrial competitiveness scheme and the critical minerals strategy are both part of this Government’s relentless focus on growth and our success in attracting inward investment.

As to the points about taxation, I am afraid that the hon. Lady will have to wait 48 hours for the Budget.