British Steel

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

As the Secretary of State made clear during the debate of Saturday before last, the capacity for primary steelmaking production is important, and the steel strategy will look at exactly how we deliver that. There are new ways of delivering primary steel—using hydrogen, for example—that other European countries are now using and developing. We will ensure that, whatever the future brings, we have the right level of production in this country.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Government have my full-hearted support for the action they have taken with regard to Scunthorpe, which is important for not merely Scunthorpe itself and the workers there but the supply chain as well. In that regard, I want to raise an issue of concern that I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will look into. I have had a letter from Ian Walker, who is the chairman of Rotary Engineering, a long-established, highly regarded specialist engineering firm in my constituency. It provided services to British Steel last November, and it is still waiting for payment for those services, despite regular correspondence that has been ignored. If Rotary Engineering is having this difficulty with British Steel, many other small and medium-sized enterprises could as well. Will my hon. Friend look into this as a matter of urgency, find out what British Steel has been doing and try to ensure that these important companies—important for not merely British Steel but our whole engineering industry—are paid and able to survive?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The supply chain of these big steel production companies, whether Tata, British Steel or others, is really important. I do not have an answer for him now, but I will look into the issue he raises about Rotary Engineering and ensure the right thing is being done.

Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill

Clive Betts Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful for that, because it allows me to say something that I had not been planning to say: we sit on an island of gas, so why, for goodness’ sake, are we not drilling for it? We need it, and we will need it strategically. There is a need for strategic industry, and I agree with the Secretary of State on that. However, the issue does not stop there; it stops elsewhere, in the production of energy. I simply leave that point for him, and he can argue it with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

I want to say one final thing. In the course of this Chinese company’s operations, I have talked to a number of people involved in the business, and its record on health and safety and on the abuse of the workers in the blast furnace area has been shocking. We should look into that much more carefully. The company has brought in cheap Chinese workers and pays them nothing like what it pays the British workers. Many of those workers have ended up burned and in great difficulty. I simply say that this is not a company we should be doing business with right now.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Clive Betts)]

We will go to the Front Benchers at 1.40 pm, so if Members who are called could be as brief as possible, that would be appreciated.

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his speech and his decisive action. This will be a meaningful day for the people of Scunthorpe. I know how important jobs in the steel industry are. Davy Roll, otherwise known as Union Electric Steel, has stood at the heart of Gateshead, in our town centre, for over 150 years. It is the only cast steel roll maker left in the country and it is at risk of closure. Steel is incredibly important for our future, and the Government are taking decisive action.

I am reminded today of a place close to my constituency. Ten years ago, the people of Redcar were let down. I pay tribute to Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), for their campaigning. At the time, Redcar had the second most efficient blast furnace in Europe, and yet it was abandoned, along with 2,300 jobs. A proud town was let down. Today, Scunthorpe and Redcar have learned the difference a Labour Government make and the difference decisiveness makes: they save jobs and change lives.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Thank you for that. If Members can keep contributions to around three minutes, that will be helpful. I call Liz Saville Roberts.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I remind Members that each contribution should take no more than two to three minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

I am glad to be called in this debate. I declare an interest: the GMB—one of the steelworkers’ unions, whose parliamentary group I chair—has donated to my constituency party.

Twenty years ago, the MG Rover car plant in my constituency collapsed, with devastating consequences that are felt to this day. Today, all our thoughts are with the steelworkers and their families at Scunthorpe and Teesside, and I hope that we can do something to avoid such a future for them.

I do not want to speak for too long, but I would like to make a few points. First, today’s decisive action is welcome. I think all our constituents would rather have a Government who acted at great speed than a Government who acted too late. Secondly, I echo the point raised earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) about the importance of steelworkers’ participation in the days ahead. If the Government could also clarify any changes in plans for the UK Steel Council, that would be appreciated. Thirdly, what role will Jingye now have in the running of British Steel on a day-to-day basis? It is clear that workers have lost confidence in the management—as shown by reports this morning that management from Jingye were refused entry to the plant—and that a change in that day-to-day management is needed.

I would like to respond to a couple of points made in the debate. The last time that this House carried legislation that had the effect of nationalising steel, that legislation was 108 pages long. Nationalisation is clearly outside the scope of the urgent emergency legislation that we are debating today. We have also heard much about costs, including energy costs. I do not wish to add to the informed comments made earlier, but the OECD has also said that the root cause of the industry’s current problems is “global excess capacity”. In other words, the UK has been left at the mercy of over-production and the dumping of artificially subsidised goods. The Manufacturing Trade Remedies Alliance has long called for our trade defences to be strengthened, and I hope that those calls will be listened to in a way that they were not under the last Government.

I would like to end on a personal note, because I have thought about one person in particular today: a family member, my aunt’s father, who began his career at the Ravenscraig steelworks in Motherwell. He rose to become a branch officer, national executive member and later a salaried official of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, the forerunner of today’s Community union. In the peripatetic life of a trade union official, he later worked in the west midlands, Corby and Scunthorpe. He was fierce in the defence of his members, and the gentlest and most modest of men in private. I understand that he is still remembered on the executive of Community, and if he could be here today to witness this most difficult chapter in the steel industry’s history, I am sure that he would offer valuable perspective and wise counsel. With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to enter his name in the record of this place: Dick Knox.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I thank all Members for their help in being brief for the last few contributions, but unfortunately we have time only for a final Back-Bench contribution. I call Sir Jeremy Wright.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I can accept that there is broad agreement in this place that we should take action to preserve virgin steelmaking capability in the UK, but quite frankly, it is not enough for this House just to agree that we should do something. It is our responsibility to look at the detail of what the Government are proposing and to decide whether it is properly targeted and appropriate for the task. There is not going to be a Committee stage or a Report stage in this Bill; that is what the clock tells us. This is our only opportunity to look at the detail of the Bill, and I am afraid that precious little of that has been done today.

Let us have a look at what powers the Secretary of State is going to be given—by the end of today, as things will probably unfold. The Secretary of State will have powers that apply to all steel manufacturers in England and Wales, not just to the particular company over which he has specific concern. There will no doubt be shivers running down the spine at Tata Steel as well, because the Bill applies to that company too. The Secretary of State can act, according to this Bill, in order to instruct those companies to deal in specific ways with what are described as “specified assets”. As I mentioned to him earlier, that does not limit the measure to blast furnaces or to anything else that is specifically required to generate virgin steel. The Secretary of State can give directions to ask and require a company to do pretty much anything that company could otherwise do, and if the company refuses to do it, the Government have powers to take control of assets, including powers to enter premises by force if necessary, and criminal penalties that can lead to imprisonment. These are very serious powers indeed, and I am afraid that this House is simply not being given the opportunity to scrutinise them as they require. They also look suspiciously, by the way, like nationalisation—so perhaps it would be easier to call this thing what it really is.

Let me address one or two specifics before I finish. I hope that the Secretary of State, for whom I have huge respect, will think about—I think he has and will—some of the problems that this legislation will throw up. First, there is highly likely to be considerable controversy over whether a company in question is complying with a Government instruction. A company is likely to argue that point. As the Secretary of State pointed out, in respect of his particular concern we are dealing with a company that he does not trust and that he believes has acted in bad faith thus far. I have no reason to think, nor does the Secretary of State, that the company might not continue to do so.

Secondly, the Secretary of State is making himself responsible for claims against the company that arise from specific instructions given to it by the Government. That is what the indemnity clause means. In those circumstances, there will be a further dispute about whether the relevant problem has arisen because of what the Government have told the company to do or because of something it has control over. As I said, the Secretary of State is enabling there to be two hands on the tiller, and that will store up headaches for the Government. I urge him, despite the fact that we have not had the chance to explore the matter today, to think very carefully about how the Government will protect themselves and the taxpayer from the oncoming complexities.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I call Dame Harriett Baldwin for the official Opposition.

Non-disclosure Agreements

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Speeches should be about seven minutes; that is guidance, not an absolute limit. I remind Members not to refer to any cases that are active before the courts, because they are sub judice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Wrigley]

I fully agree. Absolutely—people do not know what they can do.

Will the Minister investigate how widespread the use of NDAs is in the NHS? Given that it is probably in the Government’s power to ban it in the NHS without primary legislation, will he take steps immediately to have it stopped and seek what recompense is required for those who have suffered it?

I agree absolutely that this practice must be stopped entirely. It is just one of many poor practices that are carried out by some businesses—not all, but some—often unwittingly. That is why I introduced my Company Directors (Duties) Bill, which will have its Second Reading debate on 4 July. Right now, the company directors’ duties say that they must put shareholder interests first and might have regard to other things. My Bill—I hope the Minister will consider working with me on making it happen—would change company law so that directors have a duty to balance the interests of shareholders, employees and the environment. I seek the support of Members present to make the Bill law; I hope that we can have further discussions to see what we can do to get it into the Government’s schedule. Until we put that balance at the foundation of the company directors’ duties, it will be impossible to get rid of circumstances, such as those the hon. Member for Congleton described, where company directors behave badly.

I fully support the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley on all the issues that she identified and will happily engage and do whatever I can to advance work on them.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

The Front-Bench speeches will need to start by 10.28 am. I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

I certainly will not take that long—that would not make me very popular at all.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Betts, and to follow such informative and heartfelt speeches. I wish that there were more people here, because I have learned something new from every single speaker—those who spoke because this issue matters to them and those, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell), who have huge experience in this area. It is well worth sharing the information that we have heard with colleagues, so that it does not stay within these four walls.

There will probably be some bad-faith actors out there who will want to read what we say as a desire to ban NDAs altogether and not protect commercially sensitive information. That is absolutely not what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), or any of the other campaigners who have worked hard on this issue, have laid out. Our intention is purely to stop the abuse, discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment that we have heard about. I praise my right hon. Friend for seeking to include a measure on this subject in the Employment Rights Bill, and the Minister for saying that they will work on an issue on which we have not seen progress, despite the existence of quite a lot of cross-party consensus.

We have heard about the high-profile cases, and we know that women are five times more likely to have signed an NDA than men, but the problem is not just the scale; it is that victims of discrimination or sexual harassment are asked to sign NDAs at their most vulnerable moment. Pregnant Then Screwed estimated that around 435,000 pregnant women and mothers in the UK have signed NDAs, and 80% of those felt they had to either leave their job or cut their hours as a result of the NDA. Those are shocking statistics. Surely, that goes against the Government’s aim to ensure that people get work, get the jobs they want, and stay in work and progress. This is not just about injustice; it is also about the growth agenda.

We do not know the true scale of the issue. I am grateful that Can’t Buy My Silence, Pregnant Then Screwed and other organisations are working on estimates, but we should not be working on estimates; we should know the full scale of what is happening throughout our economy. I do not know how many people are subjected to NDAs in Luton North. I really should. We all should, and we should know which employers are abusing the system.

Why do people sign NDAs, and why are they predominantly women? It is because of the huge power imbalance. We have heard about the low pay, and the lack of justice and of access to justice. They often feel that it is their only option and their only way out. They think, “If I don’t take this, what else am I going to get?” The big CEO of a corporation is not going to get taken down by the cleaner. That just does not happen; it only happens in films. That is because our justice system is not balanced or fair, and people feel that the oppression of workers is just part of the cost of doing business.

An NDA not only leaves the victim without a sense of justice, but protects a culture of wrongdoing. Not only does it protect the wrongdoer every step of the way, but, a large chunk of the time, they actually fail up. I have heard about instances of sexual harassment in the workplace in which the woman has to sign an NDA and leave, while the man gets to stay—in fact, not only does he stay, but he is either moved aside to a different department or promoted to gain more power and access. That is happening in all parts of our economy, in every workplace. We saw it at Harrods, and we have just seen it at Primark. It is really downplayed. I think that NDAs are used to downplay the severity of what they are truly hiding. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, people hide disgusting behaviour behind NDAs.

The boss of Primark has just resigned for what he called an “error of judgment” with regard to his behaviour towards a woman. An “error of judgment” is when I decide to dress for winter but it is really hot outside; it is not something that a CEO has to resign for because of his behaviour towards a woman. It is not just about protecting the victim; it is also about how we improve the culture in business and in our economy. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley said, this does not just happen in one sector; it happens in charities, in finance and, unfortunately, in trade unions. We have heard about it at the Women and Equalities Committee.

I plead with the Minister to not forget self-employed workers. Whatever changes we make—and I hope that we make progress—we must consider the vulnerability of self-employed workers. The Committee heard that loud and clear in the evidence we received on our misogyny in music inquiry. We heard from brave witnesses, including Charisse Beaumont, Lucy Cox and Celeste. Dr Beaumont, who is the CEO of Black Lives in Music, said:

“We have hundreds of stories from women of being harassed including sexually assaulted by male artists as well as promoters, people assaulting women in music education, participating in almost naked casting videos, young women pressured to drink and take drugs, who are then assaulted, male producers grooming young female vocalists.”

She added:

“It’s rife in all genres, particularly classical music.”

I want to pay tribute to one of the very brave female artists who did speak out. She came from the classical music industry, and she spoke at our Select Committee. I really do recommend reading her testimony. She spoke about the horrendous behaviour of some of the conductors towards female classical musicians, the sexual favours that those women were asked for in order to get the first positions, and the fact that one conductor had said, “Well, if you want to be in the first chair, you’re going to have to wait until someone dies or gets pregnant.” In the classical music industry, they equated pregnancy with death. I want to say how difficult it was, and how hard my Clerks had to work, to find women who were prepared to speak out against the misogyny and sexual harassment that they had faced in the music industry.

The last Tory Government agreed that there was a problem with misogyny in music but rejected every one of the Committee’s recommendations. I ask this Government to do better. One of those recommendations was about banning NDAs. The general secretary of the Musicians’ Union, Naomi Pohl, has called for a ban on NDAs that prohibit the disclosure of sexual harassment, discrimination or bullying. Some 51% of women report experiencing gender discrimination in music, and 32% of them have been sexually harassed while working as a musician. That proportion increases if the woman is from a global majority—black, Asian or minority ethnic—background, disabled or LGBT+.

Lawyers are probably getting quite excited by the thought of what alternatives there might be to NDAs, so I say to the Minister that we need to be innovative. We need to be ahead of the curve and of all the bad-faith actors. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley is right: we should not be falling behind as a country; we should be leading the way. Minister, the evidence is there—let us get to it.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank everyone for their co-operation. We now move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople, each of whom has, as a guide, around 10 minutes, but we clearly have more time than that if people want to take it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh Babarinde]

I would love to study that particular dimension. We must defend the rights of pregnant women and new mums, who have been so let down by our legislative framework, including the individual I am asking hon. Members to imagine. She went through mediation, where it was agreed that she would receive a severance payment in exchange for signing an agreement that included a gagging clause. She said:

“The net effect was that I was unemployed and, whilst I was financially compensated, I was unable to explain to future employers why I had left that employment and why it wasn’t my choice to do so.”

That is exactly the point that the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) made. By the way, I really feel that her contribution to this debate has been kick-ass—I am not sure that that that is a parliamentary term, but I am sure that hon. Members agree. Further, this new mum said:

“I felt I was the party in the right and yet I was the one who had the uncertainty and stress of being unemployed and having to job hunt with a 9 month old baby.”

There is no need to imagine such a scenario because it is a true story. The only reason I cannot name the individual or the employer is that, although we might be protected by parliamentary privilege in this place, the lady whose circumstances I just described is not.

This is the reality faced by countless individuals across the country, right under our noses, and it is an injustice that cannot be tolerated. We as Members of Parliament have to act decisively to end this moral and regulatory failing. First, and no two ways about it, NDAs should be outlawed in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment and bullying, to ensure that no victim is silenced, no victim is prevented from seeking justice and no police or regulatory investigation is obstructed. We have already seen encouraging steps in the legal and academic sectors to ban the use of NDAs in such cases. We heard a bit about those from the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley, but these piecemeal efforts are not enough.

We need comprehensive legislation, and there is precedent for that in other jurisdictions, as has been touched on already. In Prince Edward Island in Canada, new legislation restricts the use and content of NDAs in cases of sexual harassment and discrimination in all out-of-court settlements where a survivor does not want it. In the USA, the Speak Out Act was passed in 2022 prohibiting non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses agreed to before a dispute that involves sexual misconduct. Last month, Ireland became the first jurisdiction in the world to legislate country-wide against the misuse of NDAs. In the light of that, the efforts of the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley in her amendment are extremely laudable, as are the similar efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). That is the first thing we must do: outlaw NDAs in such circumstances.

Secondly, we must ensure that individuals who sign NDAs outside those circumstances but under duress or intimidation have a clear and legal route to challenge them. Too often, victims sign these agreements without fully understanding their rights or the full extent of the implications. They end up, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, tied up in knots in their endeavour. I have heard from a man in this scenario who said,

“I had no resilience left to fight an investigation nor a tribunal so I accepted.”

On the powerful point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), we must guarantee that legal advice is readily available, independent and free from conflicts of interest for people in these scenarios, so that no one feels coerced into silence by a document they barely understand.

Thirdly, we must foster a cultural shift in public and private organisations so that they no longer view NDAs as a convenient tool to shield themselves from scrutiny, and we can move away from the culture of fear, which the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who is no longer in her place, referred to. Employers must be held accountable not only for misconduct that occurs on their watch, but for any attempt to cover it up. Transparency should be the norm, not the exception.

Finally, we must support victims and survivors in speaking out. That means strengthening whistleblower protections, including through establishing a dedicated office of the whistleblower, which the Liberal Democrats advocated for in our manifesto, alongside organisations such as WhistleblowersUK. There is a particular whistle- blower in my constituency who I will not name, but she knows who she is. She is campaigning hard on this front as well.

Silence benefits only those who perpetrate harm. Our role must be to amplify the voices of those who have been silenced for too long. This debate, while ostensibly technical and legalistic, gets to the core of what kind of society we want to be. Do we want to be a society in which institutions prioritise their reputations over human dignity, and victims are forced into silence while abusers continue unchecked, or do we want a society in which justice prevails, transparency is valued and every individual regardless of their status or power can be held accountable for their actions? I know which society I want to live in, and I think that all of us in this Chamber today are on the same page—in fact, I am confident of that. Liberal Democrats look forward to working with the Government on a cross-party basis to stamp out this insidious practice once and for all. We look forward also to hearing what steps the Minister will take to make that a reality.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I now call the spokesman for the official Opposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith]

I do not particularly want to relitigate our debate in the main Chamber a few weeks ago. It is the job of the Opposition to kick the tyres on legislation that the Government put forward, and that is what did in that debate. I hope the hon. Lady turns out to be right, but the Employment Rights Bill is still a Bill, and when it undoubtedly becomes an Act due to the parliamentary arithmetic at the moment, we will be able to fully test that and see who is right.

I want to focus on the importance of the issue before us today. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition echo the question that Members have asked the Minister this morning: when can we expect legislation to be brought forward to tackle this issue? Will it be stand-alone, or will the Government amend the existing vehicle available to them in the House of Lords?

We also need to ensure that the Government’s own house is in order on this front. I gently ask the Minister for transparency on the Government’s own use of NDAs. How many non-disclosure agreements have been used across the civil service since the Government took office last July? Do the Government rely on these agreements to settle disputes within their own Departments? If the Government believe, as I hope they do, that NDAs should not be misused—and misused is a light term for this—they must lead by example.

I do not believe that this is about party politics; it is about ensuring fairness and justice in our workplaces. We must end the practice of silencing victims and start fostering a culture where wrongdoing is exposed and addressed. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and, more importantly, seeing the meaningful action that every Member who has spoken in this debate this morning wants to see come to pass.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I call the Minister. I would appreciate it if he could leave two minutes at the end for the mover to wind up.

Future of the Post Office

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

As I have already made clear, no decisions have been taken to close any directly managed branch. There is a need to look at the costs that the Post Office incurs going forward, in order to make it fit for purpose over the next five to 10 years. As a result, we will need to look at the future of directly managed branches, but only once Post Office managers have talked seriously with sub-postmasters, trade unions and other key stakeholders, as we have made clear to the Post Office. That is the right way to proceed. We have also made clear we will not change the commitment to provide 11,500 branches, which will ensure everybody continues to have good access to a Post Office branch in every part of the country.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

During the last Parliament, some time before the Liberal Democrats took up the issue, I met with my constituent, Richard Trinder, the sub-postmaster at Handsworth post office, and, online, with some of his colleagues from across the country. They raised the issue of mutualisation. I brought that up with the previous Post Office Minister, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who gave the matter positive consideration and said he would support it. I note that my hon. Friend the Minister has said exactly the same today. I know it will be some time before we get the fundamentals of the Post Office sorted out, but will the Minister say how he will engage with sub-postmasters? They are key to the issue. We need to work and look with them at how mutualisation might work, and what sort of structures they would like to see created that can make it work positively, going forward.

[Gareth Thomas]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s question. We need to take a number of steps in order to see mutualisation as a realistic way forward. In the first instance, there has to be a sustained change in Post Office culture about how sub-postmasters are treated. On that, the establishment of the postmaster panel and a consultative council, announced by the chair of the Post Office, Nigel Railton, are significant steps forward. I hope the sub-postmasters in my hon. Friend’s constituency will genuinely engage with those bodies. I do not think we can impose mutualisation; it must come up from the grassroots, with the Government being willing to look at that option. The changes that Post Office senior management is looking to make are a good first step in their own right, and have the potential for future positive governance change in the long run. I genuinely encourage my hon. Friend and his sub-postmasters to engage in the Green Paper process.