Redcar Coke Ovens

David Rutley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

The hon. Gentleman was at the meeting—he wanted to come to it and I said he was more than welcome to attend—and he knows that nobody put up a white flag. He is not stupid, and he knows the reality—[Interruption.] I am not patronising; I am reminding the hon. Gentleman, because he is intelligent and he knows, that the price of steel has almost halved. We are not hiding behind state aid rules. I challenge him to tell me what we could do that is within the state aid rules, and I will have a look at that. We have explored everything.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I recognise that the closure will have a real impact on the community. Redcar is a great part of the world and has a really skilled workforce, and the Government have taken pragmatic steps to try to assist in a difficult situation. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are benefits to undertaking more proactive reviews of large sites in industries that are going through transformational change—including diversification initiatives, and considering alternative uses for sites—just as the Minister for Life Sciences is initiating in the pharmaceutical sector?

[Anna Soubry]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments and for his question. I very much agree with him. We have to take an honest and realistic approach to all these matters, looking at conditions and at events we actually have no control over. There are, however, many things we can do. To say that we do not have a strategy is just ludicrous, because we absolutely do have one.