Former Steelworks Site in Redcar

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Moon. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) on securing this important debate. She is a champion not just for her constituents, but for steel communities across our country, and her passion for her local area shone through her speech.

It is clear that, out of crisis, there is an opportunity that must be seized. The news over three years ago that the Redcar blast furnace would be finally turned off was a terrible blow to all of us from steel communities. The closure of SSI marked the time when our country’s steel crisis first made headlines, as steel manufacturing ended in a region that had shaped the industry for 150 years. Despite emerging in the wake of the devastation of such huge job losses, the local master plan represents the best of regeneration. It unites the region around a plan that is ambitious for the communities and businesses of south Tees, and aims to create 20,000 jobs.

As the recent BBC series “The Mighty Redcar” highlighted so well, Redcar is a brilliant town. However, the investment needed to make the plan succeed is enormous. As my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar laid out, there are huge complexities in securing land and delivering plans. There is a simple truth here: in the last two years, the Government have not been shy of announcing funds and special schemes, or of sprinkling ministerial visits to the site, but the words are not yet matched by delivery of anything like the funds needed. As has been said, much of the funding announced is for the most basic security and remediation work. The Government have a legal duty to keep the site safe, so much of the vaunted £118 million in last year’s Budget is to be used to comply with their legal duty to fund the site and to protect the public from industrial hazards.

The money for specific investment schemes is welcome, but it is far too little. Much more finance is required to complete the most basic infrastructure and land assembly works, let alone create an essential and inspiring mixed-use site at Redcar. As my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar said, companies were seriously looking to invest, but now have cold feet because of the Government’s failure to promise the real funds needed for the site.

Public funding has the power to unlock private investment, but it needs to be at a level that gives confidence to investors that the Government stand behind the scheme. Will the Minister use the opportunity he has this morning to outline specifically what further funding the Government will allocate to ensure the efficient and effective delivery of the master plan? Will he also confirm that there will be a commitment to the additional powers suggested by my hon. Friends who have spoken so eloquently today, which could help bring the delays to an end? Will he give clarity on the very serious issues surrounding the airport, as raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham)?

Examples such as this of essential schemes being delayed by this Government’s failure to commit highlight why Labour’s infrastructure plans are so important. Success with schemes of this complexity and size is not won cheaply. We must invest to get the outcome that Redcar, the Tees valley and the whole country need. The next Labour Government will have communities such as Redcar at the heart of their programme, and I know that as our infrastructure plans are developed in detail, Teesside will not be forgotten.

I want to make something very clear. The closure of SSI was a consequence of a Government with no plan for steel—a Government who stood by as a great industry teetered on the brink and, in the case of Redcar, closed for the last time. This is an important point, because no doubt we are about to hear from the Minister—although I hesitate to put words in his mouth—about millions of pounds committed for Redcar and the site, special economic zones, and the work that the Government are doing. We should remember this: SSI Redcar collapsed because there was no policy to support British steelmaking properly, on energy costs, on taxation or on investment.

The tragedy is that we have seen very few steps forward in the last three years. Energy costs for British steelmakers are still 50% more than for European competitors, and calls for a fairer business rates system for large producers have been met with silence in Whitehall. Crucially, we still have no steel sector deal for our industry to bring together comprehensive action.

[Mr Goodwill]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Gill Furniss]

I am sorry; we must get on.

We have waited more than a year since steel companies set out what was needed, but we are yet to see action from this Government. Without that and wider industrial regeneration, there is little safety for other steel towns, and there is not the environment that will deliver success for south Tees.

This summer, Labour launched the Build it in Britain campaign, committing a Labour Government to using the capacity and expertise of Britain’s industries to fulfil far more of the country’s infrastructure needs. A Labour Government would have prevented the collapse of SSI Redcar, stepping in where this Tory Government were unwilling to save jobs and expertise to support the economy.

There will be a future for the south Tees site; I am sure of that. With great Labour women such as my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar and council leader Sue Jeffrey fighting for their area, I am confident there can be huge success.

I have to say that I found the remarks by the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) about the former MP for Redcar, the late Marjorie Mowlam, very distasteful. [Interruption.] You referred to Mo Mowlam.

[Anna Turley]

The remarks were directed at my predecessor, Vera Baird, but my hon. Friend makes an important point, and I totally agree that the remarks were disrespectful; Vera Baird did her best in extremely difficult circumstances. I come back to the point that unlike the Conservative Government, the Labour Government saved the steelworks, which were reopened.

[Gill Furniss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

To conclude, the Government must properly back this fantastic opportunity, not just for Redcar’s sake, but for our future economy. If they cannot deliver the ambitious plan that the South Tees Development Corporation master plan lays out, a Labour Government will.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)]

It is customary in Westminster Hall debates to say what a privilege it is to appear in front of the Chair. In your case, Mrs Moon, that is absolutely true. I am greatly honoured to do so.

[Gill Furniss]

Charmer!

[Richard Harrington]

Just currying favour with the Chair—but it is actually genuinely true. One of the most interesting days I have had in this job was spent visiting Mrs Moon and her constituency.

I thank the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) for securing the debate. These are very important topical points and I congratulate her on the consistency of her representations on this project. The whole area is very lucky to have the MPs that it does—the hon. Lady, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) and the other MPs who have spoken today. It is also lucky to have the Mayor, Ben Houchen.

There is a bit of an undertone of “who said what where”. That is not for me to go into, but I make a plea to all parties, including those not in the room, that these matters are much better dealt with on a consensual, cross-party basis. If anybody feels that I and my office can help in that, I am very pleased to offer that help.