Steel Industry

Frank Roy Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)]

I will not be taking any interventions so that as many Members as possible can speak.

I welcome today’s debate and the members of Community, the Union for Life, who are in the Public Gallery. I especially welcome the general-secretary, Roy Rickhuss, and make a special mention of Ross Clark, who has travelled more than 400 miles from Dalzell steel plant in Motherwell to hear this debate.

There are two elements to the steel industry: the sector itself and the people who work in it. But who is a steel worker? Who works in our plants up and down the country? A steel worker is the office worker, cleaner, canteen assistant, instrument mechanic, electrician, welder, crane driver, fork-lift driver, locomotive driver, engineer and the list goes on and on, and that is before we start to talk about the actual process workers themselves—the people who operate the iron ore, limestone and coal yards, sinter plants, coke ovens and blast furnaces. When that iron is made it is transferred to the steel plants, the degasser units, the basic oxygen steel plants and the continuous casting plants, until we get to the raw material called steel. Then the mills shape that raw material that is so badly needed in our country—the hot strip mill, the slab mill, the plate mill, the section mill, the wire rod mill, the welded pipe mill and the seamless pipe mill. Added to those are the small foundries and fabricators and steel stockholders throughout the United Kingdom. These are the most important components of what we call our steel industry.

But it is the men and women who collectively are our most vital component, the steel workers themselves. The people who ensure that we have steel are the people who ensure that we have oil rigs in the North sea; that we have pipes bringing gas and oil from the furthest north; that we have a Channel tunnel reinforced with steel in the south; that we have the ships that sail from our ports, the planes that fly from our airports, the buses and cars that drive on our roads, the trains that go along our rail tracks, the bridges, the buildings and the white goods. I could go on and on. That is the steel industry of the 21st century.

The one thing that our steel workers have in common is the need to make sure that their steel industry and their livelihoods are supported and protected by both Government and industry alike. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Community union, which today is launching its new stand up for steel campaign with four specific pillars that need addressing. It calls on the Government to support our UK steel industry by bringing forward the compensation package for energy intensive industries to help the industry become competitive and using Government procurement to deliver for UK foundation industries.

I am reminded of an earlier reference to the contract for the new Forth road bridge. Just to make sure that hon. Members know what happened, the Scottish Government gave that contract to companies in Poland, Spain and China. That steel came 7,500 nautical miles from Shanghai to Edinburgh. There is a plate mill in Motherwell called Dalzell and Clydebridge just a couple of miles down the road. Its steel could have come 35 miles along the M8 motorway, but, no, the nationalist Government decided to look after the interests of Scotland by looking after the interests of Shanghai steelworkers. We have heard much about the intended purchase of long products, but I will leave that to others to expand on.

As a former steelworker of nearly 15 years, I know from personal experience the worries of potential redundancy from an industry that workers have spent most of their life working in. Their skills are those of a steelworker, melting materials to a red hot liquid, shaping cold steel in a rolling mill that will last for more than a century. Now is the time for the Government to stand up for our steelworkers, to stand up for steel. Our steelworkers deserve nothing less.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Let me begin by agreeing with the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray)—who lived up to his reputation as an articulate and passionate Member of this House—that this has been a good and important debate on the steel industry. It is important to note that there will be no Division at the end of the debate, because the Government take no issue with the Opposition motion.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) set out a coherent and passionate case for what he perceives to be the issues affecting the steel industry in this country, and there was some suggestion that the Secretary of State replied to him in a somewhat churlish manner. I have worked closely with the Secretary of State for many years now, and I have to say that I have always found him to be one of the more congenial members of the Government, and I simply think that perhaps his manner was misinterpreted. He was perhaps less churlish and more wounded. That is how I would characterise the Secretary of State’s response, because he clearly articulated the many visits he has made to the steel industry itself and industries that use steel, and his great engagement with the industry, and his own perception that he is engaged with, and seeking to provide solutions to, many of the issues highlighted by the hon. Gentleman.

This has been a good and passionate debate because so many Opposition Members have strong links with this industry. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh South noted, we heard speeches from those who have worked in the steel industry and those whose families have a long and distinguished history of working in this brilliant industry. It is an industry that began in this country hundreds of years ago and, as some Opposition Members know, I have a tenuous connection with it as my father wrote “The History of British Steel”, published 40 years ago. My father had a somewhat waspish sense of humour; he died 30 years ago, and I suspect he would find it mildly amusing that his son has now spoken in three debates on the steel industry on behalf of the Government despite not having formal responsibility for the industry. However, I can tell Opposition Members that should they ever call a debate on the south London barge-building industry, I will be there to talk about the history of the Vaizeys who worked in that industry from the mid 19th century until just after the second world war.

We heard passionate contributions from the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), who talked about energy tax and procurement, and the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), who has Tata in his constituency. We also heard from the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr Roy), who has worked in the steel industry, the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), who talked about the infrastructure opportunities for the steel industry, and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who talked in detail about the long products division potential sale, which I hope I will have a chance to speak about. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) also talked about the long products division and is a worthy successor to that great former Member of this House, Ashok Kumar, who, as well as having been a distinguished Member of this House, is the only Member who has ever read John Vaizey’s “The History of British Steel”. We heard, too, from the hon. Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), and the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who talked, obviously, about Celsa in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), who is sitting on the Front Bench with me, has been passionately involved in this issue, as indeed has the Secretary of State for Wales, who was in the Chamber earlier discussing the issue with me and the Business Secretary.

The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) made the point that every five seconds a plane made with steel from Rotherham takes off or lands—challenging, in effect, the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who was only able to say that of one in three planes flying overhead. The final contribution was from the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), whose daughter went to school with my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan, and whom we are sorry to see retiring from the House.

[Mr Frank Roy]

Before he sits down, would the Minister like to tell the thousands and thousands of steelworkers’ families watching or reading this debate what he is going to do for their future?

[Mr Vaizey]

If I am unable to answer any of the specific questions that were asked in the time allocated to me, the Minister responsible for the industry will write to each and every Member who has contributed to the debate.

The main issues that arose from the debate are the need to compensate the steel industry for the high energy costs resulting from the renewables obligation and other mechanisms designed to reduce carbon, a procurement strategy as part of a metals strategy, business rates, the future of the long products division, and CARES. As the Secretary of State explained at length, we are giving as much energy compensation as we are allowed to give under European rules. We are working as fast as we can to get state aid clearance, so that we can increase the level of compensation. We are working with industry to introduce a metals strategy. We hope that such an industry-led strategy will be produced in the next few months, to be published, provisionally, in the summer.

The future of the long products division is a very serious issue and Ministers are engaged with it. The Prime Minister and the Business Secretary met north Lincolnshire MPs, and the Secretary of State and the Minister with responsibility for such matters met Klesch. As I understand it, our officials are supporting the Syndex report, which will be published this month and will look at the rationale for sale and alternative proposals. We hope that the proposals will come forward at the end of February or the beginning of March. Those could include a commercial solution or working with organisations such as the Green Investment Bank or Infrastructure UK.

As has been well trailed, an extensive review of business rates is being undertaken, and a £1 billion package of business rate support is already in place. We do understand that the steel industry, like other large industries, is concerned that new investment in plant and equipment affects the business rate valuation, thereby increasing business rates. It wants such new investment to be excluded, and I would expect the Treasury to consider that as part of its ongoing consultation. However, Members should understand that this includes the whole business rate framework, and needs to be consulted on.