Protecting Britain’s Steel Industry

Darren Jones Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

The heart of the issue that we are debating today is the Government’s power, or willingness, to intervene in the national interest. The Conservative party told the public that voting for Brexit would mean that we took back control. Instead, since Brexit, the Conservatives have scrapped the industrial strategy, failed to secure a slot in the Queen’s Speech to reform state aid, failed to improve public procurement rules and boxed themselves into a corner by failing to reform the rules of the Trade Remedies Authority, as we have heard this evening. These issues are now putting jobs in the steel industry at risk, as the steel industry tells us, at a time when the sector is once again in peril as it swings from steel crisis to steel crisis.

The long-running pressures on UK steel are well known—high energy prices, high business rates and global competition from countries that undercut the price of British steel—but the importance of the steel sector to the UK is also well known, from protecting highly-skilled, well-paid jobs in communities that rely on the industry, to being able to buy domestic sources of steel, which need to be low-carbon.

The Government, however, have failed to do anything helpful on these issues. In fact, they have made things worse by publishing an industrial decarbonisation strategy that once again does not have sufficient buy-in from the Chancellor to help businesses to make the changes they need. Now, to make things even worse, the Minister tells us that the Government cannot do anything to stop the Trade Remedies Authority scrapping tariff safeguards, at a time when we all know that huge gluts of cheap steel are waiting to be exported from countries such as China.

I am going to be unusually generous to the Government, because I believe the Minister knows he is in trouble, which is why he barely touched on this motion in his speech. I think the Business Secretary knows all of this and he wants to do something about it, but, much like when Downing Street mounted a coup and took industrial policy from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Business Secretary and the Ministers here seem not to have the authority or power to act. That is why repeatedly the Business Secretary has said that it is the International Trade Secretary’s responsibility to sort this out. I note that neither of them is here this evening.

In a letter to me, the International Trade Secretary said, “We will not hesitate to defend UK industry and we will be working across government to ensure the UK can defend its vital interests.” It is the Government’s lucky day, because our motion gives them that opportunity to bring forward the emergency legislation they need to reject the TRA’s recommendations and to temporarily extend the tariff safeguards until fuller reforms can be brought before the House. So this is a real test for the Government, given everything the Conservative party has told us about Brexit, levelling up and protecting British industry. The Government have the power to intervene—the question is whether the Conservative party will do so.