UK Steel Manufacturing
Debate between Derek Twigg and Sarah Jones(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sarah Jones
Well, the previous Government did not. We have a £2.5 billion fund and, as I said, we are looking at DRI to make virgin iron. To be clear, we are having to deal with a mess that we inherited. Virgin steel is important, and that is what we are looking at. I am not going to say to the hon. Gentleman right now that this is what we are spending our £2.5 billion investment on, because this is being worked on at pace. We will come back to the House as soon as we have something to announce.
Derek Twigg (Widnes and Halewood) (Lab)
The defence industry manufacturing base is, of course, vital to this country, not least in the engineering jobs it provides. We know that steel is crucial to building armoured vehicles and ships, for instance. It is very important that we have a regular and guaranteed supply of steel, and we want to see more UK steel used in defence manufacturing.
Sarah Jones
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who has much expertise in this area. The Department is working closely with the Ministry of Defence and the Secretary of State for Defence to make sure we are maintaining our defence. We are building as much as we can in the UK, with as many contracts in the UK as we can. We are using the power of Government to deliver that.