UK Steel Industry

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Stephen Doughty

Thursday 21st January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

May I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) and other hon. Members for their contributions? The speech made by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) in defence of the Government was very bold; it was also very wrong. I do not say that politically, however. Every word I say today is based on the importance of the steel industry for not only the United Kingdom and south Wales, but the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon and those in Neath, Bridgend and Ogmore. The industry is important for not simply those directly employed by it but, as my hon. Friend knows from his area, those who are indirectly employed by it in the supply chain, which is around 1,200 people in our area. It is also important for every café owner, pub owner, plumber, electrician and tradesman who relies on the steel pound.

Do not accuse me today of making political points for the sake of it. I will speak from the heart, and I will speak on behalf of constituents who are very worried at this moment in time. I want to put that on record. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole said that politics was being played, but I am not playing politics. I believe in the future of a viable, vibrant steel industry and the importance of that for the United Kingdom. I know he does as well, and while we may argue, we will do so on the basis that we firmly believe in the future of a steel industry.

The Minister has been credited in this debate and others as being doughty, feisty and a fighter with real capability. I agree, but I say to her quite directly that her important role in battling for the steel industry looks at the moment like an impotent one. I am sorry to say that, because there have been many good words spoken, and taskforces have been set up, belatedly.

The Government recognised late in the day that when they imposed carbon taxes three or four years ago—I say this as a strong environmentalist—they did not put in place the mitigation measures needed for energy-intensive industries. That should have been done at the same time for not only the steel industry, but ceramics, the paper industry and others. A thinking Chancellor would have worked that out and not waited three years. The approach has damaged the steel industry, and we need to put it right.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend made an incredibly important point about environmental matters and carbon efficiency. Would it not be absolutely absurd for the UK’s highly carbon-efficient steel industry—whether in my own constituency, Port Talbot or elsewhere—to see its jobs offshored to the less carbon-efficient China?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Indeed; my hon. Friend makes a wise point. I commend the Government for their high-level negotiations at COP21 in Paris—tremendous. The UK led the high-level coalition of ambition. The EU led as well, and yet we could end up in a situation in which we are not only offshoring jobs, but offshoring them to countries that do not have the same standards of energy efficiency that we have at Tata Steel in Port Talbot and throughout the UK. It is in the interests of the climate to keep those jobs here in this country.

Welsh Assembly Legislation (Attorney-General)

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Stephen Doughty

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I could not agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman more. Perhaps I should clarify what I was saying: LCOs were clearly imperfect, but the new system is meant to be better. Even with the LCO paraphernalia—it was difficult and cumbersome—attempts were made within the constitutional arrangement, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen has made clear, to work through those difficulties. If necessary, and as a last resort, they would be escalated up the constitutional food chain for resolution at a higher level, but there was certainly not the seemingly macho political posturing of taking it outside of this place without recourse to internal mechanisms and straight to the Supreme Court. I can see only one possible justification for that: to prove some sort of point and say to the people of Wales and the democratically elected representatives in Wales, “Know your place.”

[Stephen Doughty]

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is also an opportunity cost here? What is the Secretary of State for Wales doing with his and his officials’ time, attempting to stymie and frustrate the will of the Welsh people and the National Assembly instead of focusing on standing up for Wales around the Cabinet table? He was evasive when we questioned him on this point in the Welsh Affairs Committee. He would not give us an estimate of the amount of time that he and his office had spent on this. I suspect it was far more than it should have been.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. There is a clear case for a cost-benefit analysis of the tasks the Secretary of State is spending his time on, and for asking why he is not finding more useful things to do. There is also the question of the cost of challenging this through the Supreme Court. In an era of what we are told is great austerity, cutbacks and stringent demands on Departments, I am amazed that the Wales Office thinks it fit to throw on to Government—albeit another Department—the cost associated with a Supreme Court challenge.

I turn to the Agricultural Wages Board, about which I know some small amount, given that I was the shadow Minister who stood here frequently in opposition to its abolition. Just as frequently, I put the case that the Westminster Government merely needed to allow Wales to continue as it was by putting a clause in the Bill, as requested by the Welsh Government, saying, “Ignore Wales for these purposes.” We only asked that they let us carry on and find a way to do it ourselves, rather than abolishing the whole mechanism and saying, “Now do what you want.”

I pay tribute to the work of Unite, in Wales and throughout the UK, which stood up for the lowest of the low-paid agricultural workers, for skills and training and for the development of earnings and capacity among agricultural workers. I also pay tribute to colleagues in the Welsh Assembly, including Mick Antoniw and others, who fought the good fight in Wales and to the Farmers Union of Wales—for goodness’ sake!—which said, “The reason we want to keep it in Wales is that we are slightly different from England. We have a higher proportion of small and medium-sized farms, which do not only employ individuals. That is why we want the clarity provided by the Agricultural Wages Board. We also rent ourselves out.” They would say to me, “I as a small farmer, rent out, and I know the terms of the contract.” I am talking of the young farmers of Wales too. These are not organisations that would automatically side with Labour on every issue in defence of something such as the Agricultural Wages Board, but my goodness they did on this occasion.

All that the Welsh Government and Alun Davies, the Welsh Minister, were asking was, “Give us time and space to define our own future”, but that did not happen. We debated it long and hard, we fought the good fight, speaking up for the Agricultural Wages Board not only in England, but in Wales, all the while conscious that the voice of representatives in the Welsh Government and the National Assembly was not being heard anywhere except in the media. We had to speak for them.

Wales lost without having had a direct say, and all that was required was for a Westminster Minister to say, “We concede that agriculture is a devolved responsibility. We won’t challenge you. We will put a clause in the Bill that will allow you to proceed.” That, I say to the Solicitor-General, would have shown respect for Wales and the devolution settlement. Rather than that, and symptomatic of the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West, we had a firm no. The door was shut in our faces. In effect, it wiped Wales off the democratic map. That is a regret.

The Solicitor-General is a reasonable and fair-minded fellow. The cacophony of pleas from the Opposition might remind him of the old poem about Welsh people worrying the carcase of a dead song and being a bit too melancholy, but we are not melancholy; we want to be joyous and we want to celebrate devolution and respect the fact that the people of Wales supported greater devolution. We just ask the UK Government, whatever political perspectives make it up, also to show that respect.

Horsemeat

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Stephen Doughty

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) on securing this debate, which is of vital concern not only for food production but for manufacturing and processing. It affects every constituency in the UK; I doubt that there is a single one that does not have jobs related to food manufacturing and processing. As the Minister will know, it is one of the largest employment areas in the UK economy, but is often overlooked. It is important to get food provenance and consumer confidence in the sector right, and to ensure that what is written on the label is accurate.

As my hon. Friend outlined in his contribution, this debate should focus on restoring confidence after a scare within the industry and among consumers, but in order to do so, we need complete and utter transparency. I agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams); in the past couple of decades, we have become increasingly rigorous in inspecting and testing meat, in terms of slaughter and processing. However, we also need candour, not only about the successes in the sector and in implementation across the EU but about potential failings. If we do not do so—if we try to conceal issues that might be of concern—we have learned nothing from previous scare stories that have caused a run on consumer confidence and hit the economy of the food processing sector. It is vital to be honest with consumers, ourselves and industry in order to restore and maintain confidence.

That might be uncomfortable, but before I begin, let me highlight, as I am sure the Minister will do in his speech, the importance of the sector. The meat processing and slaughter sector in the UK involves more than 300 businesses and contributes more than £4 billion in revenue and turnover. In the European Union, of which we are still a member nation at the moment, the meat processing sector employs 48 million people, and here in the UK it employs 1.25 million. It is economically important, but consumer confidence is equally important. People need to know that what they eat is what is described on the package.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate, and I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. His point about confidence is of the greatest concern to many Muslim and Jewish consumers in my constituency and across the country. Although, as we know, none of the products recalled was labelled as kosher or halal, the case has unfortunately eroded confidence more widely. Does he not think that it is crucial to rebuild confidence in the industry?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a critical point. There are technical issues that we need to consider and ask the Minister to deal with, but fundamentally, consumers might overlook much of that technical detail. They want to know exactly what the Government, the Food Standards Agency, individual food processors and manufacturers and supermarkets are doing to give utter confidence to the nth degree, so that they know what they are purchasing, whether in a local takeaway or restaurant, a supermarket or elsewhere. In a moment I will mention some ways in which we might want to deal with that.

I should like to discuss some salient points that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North mentioned, including on the fragmentation of the labelling system between three different areas and the cuts to the FSA budget, from £143 million to £132 million by 2014-15. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s comments about how he can avoid those cuts having any impact at all on front-line testing. The National Audit Office states that Government funding is falling substantially. Unison has some views on the matter, too.

I do not think that hon. Members have mentioned the detection of bute, or any other substance, whether in trace elements or otherwise—an issue that has recently emerged. The interesting response from the FSA, when this matter was pushed, was that it could provide reassurance that none of the animals slaughtered in which bute was identified were put into the human consumption chain within the UK. It is, of course, illegal to put such animals into the human food chain. However, five animals were identified later as having been subsumed into the food chain in another country in the EU. In light of comments made during this debate about integration and the fact that food now does not necessarily go straight from farm to fork—it could go through various stages of processing—it is interesting to note that food produced in this country that was tested and identified as containing bute, albeit with trace elements, entered the human food chain somewhere in the EU. Whether in respect of bute or any other substances, can we give consumers confidence that, in that spider’s web of food processing networks, nothing containing those substances is re-entering the UK for consumption?