Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ian Swales and Mark Prisk

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

The French company EDF is about to build a giant wind farm off Redcar. The main contractor will be German, and most of the materials will be imported. What more can the Government do to ensure that British business benefits more from such projects?

[Mr Prisk]

This comes back to ensuring that our procurement system is reformed and reviewed, and that is what we are going to do, to ensure that errors are not repeated.

Steel Industry (Carbon Floor Pricing)

Debate between Ian Swales and Mark Prisk

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Prisk]

Yes. The manufacturing framework covers issues that are broader than the issue that we are discussing in this debate. It is about all the issues of capital investment, skills and so on. However, the hon. Gentleman is quite right. What we have tried to do with the growth reviews for manufacturing as a whole—I am just going slightly beyond the purview of this debate, Mr Amess, but not too far—is to ensure that we have listened carefully to manufacturers about all the different aspects of manufacturing, so that we understand how the proposal will work. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that the framework needs to be one in which the Government are a partner with industry, so that it is not simply something that we have decided is the right thing without listening to others. That will be reflected particularly in our response to energy-intensive users.

[Ian Swales]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Prisk]

I will do so briefly, but there are some detailed responses to be made to the points raised in the debate.

[Ian Swales]

I will be very quick. Is the Minister aware that this very week we have had the first full meeting of the new all-party group on energy-intensive industries? I am the vice-chair of that group and I have never been to an all-party group with a higher attendance. Every single industry that has been mentioned in this debate was represented at senior level, which illustrates the level of concern about the issue. It also supports what the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) was saying, that we need time to engage with the Government to ensure that they truly understand these issues.

[Mr Prisk]

I welcome that. It is very important that we have a good and thorough debate, and that Members across the House can participate in it. That is very welcome news.

The industry is crucial. We have talked about it in principle, but when one looks at the facts, last year, some 9.7 million tonnes of crude steel were produced in the UK and the industry employs 25,000 people directly. Encouragingly—and this goes back to the point that the right hon. Member for Rotherham made—about half of the UK steel industry’s output is now exported and we are now a net exporter. That is not necessarily something that one reads in the newspapers, but it is a success story, and in that context I commend both the previous Administration and the industry itself. That is quite something.

In Wales—this is particularly relevant to the hon. Member for Newport East—I believe that about 7,000 people are employed in the steel industry, with 4,000 employed at Port Talbot and 1,000 at the Llanwern rolling mills, so that is an important part of the sector. What is encouraging is that despite the fact that in 2008, the industry saw demand for its products drop by 50%, which would be devastating for any industry, it has been able, through good management of production, good co-operation and a flexible and committed work force, to ensure that there were not any major long-term job losses in those plants, which have been able to come back into production. Of course, there were some job losses, but in any industry if demand and production drop by half, that is potentially a killer. Thankfully, that did not happen.

I turn to the specific issue of the carbon floor price, before addressing the energy-intensive industries strategy and thus responding to the question about what my Department is doing to mitigate the impact. We have just consulted on the issue across Government, although the consultation was of course led by the Department for Energy and Climate Change. To respond to a question from the hon. Member for Newport East, we consciously made a specific point of talking to the key industries involved, including the Engineering Employers Federation, which she mentioned, so that we have a careful understanding of the practicalities of the measure for all energy users and for particular industries.