British Steel

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend is completely correct. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition confirmed on the “Today” programme this morning that the Conservative party policy is for an electric arc furnace at Scunthorpe or Scunthorpe and Teesside—it is unclear—which would have cost nearly twice as much as the existing proposals, without any mention of primary steelmaking. I understand that the official Opposition’s position is that they are not in favour of retaining primary steelmaking capacity in the UK.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

In her statement, the Minister celebrated the fact that this is not the end of British Steel, and we all welcome that, but Labour’s policies very well could be the end of domestic oil and gas, whether it is the extended windfall tax, removing investment allowances or no new oil and gas licences. We are walking towards the end of our domestic oil and gas sector, which has proven so beneficial to us across Scotland and the UK, all the while offshoring our emissions and relying on, at best, unreliable and, at worst, hostile states such as China to supply our renewable energy infrastructure. Taking the example of British Steel, is it not time to reverse Labour’s headlong rush towards ending oil and gas in the North sea and to rely on our domestic supply for as long as we can, to help our energy security into the future?

[Sarah Jones]

It would be helpful to understand the Opposition’s official position when it comes to China. China is the world’s second largest economy and our fourth largest trading partner. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country rely on our relationship and our trade with China. We on the Government Benches believe in free and open trade, and we will continue on that basis. The hon. Lady suggests that that is not the Conservative party’s official opinion; it would be useful to understand that.

Some 70,000 jobs have been lost in North sea oil and gas since the Conservatives were in power, because it is a declining basin and it is getting harder to drill for oil and gas—we know that. The transition is happening; the issue is how we support that. This Government are putting in place a huge amount of support to try to ensure that those very skilled workers can transition into the green energy sector. I repeat this statistic: £43.7 billion of private sector investment in clean energy has been promised since this Government came to power. Is it really the Conservatives’ opinion that we should throw away all that investment and not protect all those jobs for the future?