Oral Answers to Questions
Jamie Wallis Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I remind the hon. Lady of the trader support service and the export support service, which are there to provide bespoke support to businesses. I encourage her to put them in touch with her constituents.
I am afraid the figures do not bear out what the hon. Lady is saying. The increase in goods exports to the EU, to which the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) alluded, has in part been driven by an 8.1% increase in exports from the UK to the EU in April compared with March. We are bouncing back from the pandemic and the difficulties as we changed our border and left the EU. The country is improving on that front. Where issues remain, whether for the hon. Lady’s local businesses or for the Northern Ireland protocol, we are determined to resolve them.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend for all his work to champion the steel industry. The 500,000-tonne annual quota secured for steel exporters is almost double the annual volume of UK steel exports to the US between 2018 and 2019, and it provides a significant opportunity for the UK industry to increase its supply to US customers.
Protecting Britain’s Steel Industry
Jamie Wallis Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con) [V]
This debate is very important to my constituents. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees), as both her constituency and mine border Aberavon, where the Port Talbot steelworks are located. There is a huge amount of employment in Bridgend dependent on those steelworks, either directly or indirectly.
I agree with those who say that the Government should do all they can to support the steel industry. It is also true that the industry has faced a multitude of challenges that predate covid. In fact, some are more historical than that. I encourage Opposition Members to look at what happened to the industry between 1997 and 2010, when the production of steel in this country halved and we went from approximately 70,000 people working in the industry in 1997 to just over 30,000 in 2010, a fall of 56%.
The Opposition are correct that overseas steel has had a negative impact on the British steel industry and that our British industries should not be undermined by unfair competition from overseas, especially by the dumping of steel often reported to have come from China, but their proposals to simply reject the TRA’s recommendations would result in all the current safeguards being revoked. It would breach World Trade Organisation rules and open the UK up to legal retaliation from other members. Not only is that counterintuitive, but it is quite the opposite of championing our British industries and reviving the UK steel industry.
There is a need to revolutionise the steel industry in the UK towards the economy of the future. Decarbonisation is clearly key to that. Through the clean steel fund, provided by the UK Government, the industry will adapt to the challenges of decarbonisation while continuing to manufacture world-renowned steel. However, adapting to the future green economy brings with it new challenges as well. For example, electric arc furnaces reduce carbon emissions, but there is a huge concern locally in my constituency about the impact on local jobs of moving to that technology. Although we must work to forge a greener industry, we must also continue to support the steelworkers.
The ways to support the British steel industry are multifarious and there is clearly no one solution to restoring the industry to its former glory, but I strongly feel that one important way of building back better is to champion our industries, especially British steel, when it comes to procurement. The £640 billion levelling-up infrastructure campaign will require millions of tonnes of top-quality steel. We simply must procure that right here in the UK, so that investment in British infrastructure also means investment in British jobs.
Global Britain
Jamie Wallis Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con) [V]
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to contribute to this important debate. Global Britain means a lot more than just a couple of words now that we have left the EU. This is about reassessing Britain’s place in the world and championing the good that this nation has done and will continue to do in an ever changing global market. I am proud that the UK has been at the heart of the international effort to tackle covid-19, which just shows the good that this country can do through our international engagement. The development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, for example, which is a game changer in our global fight against covid-19, has demonstrated that this country is one of the world’s best when it comes to science and research. In my opinion, the argument is also sound and compelling that Britain must do its bit to help vaccinate populations across the world.
2021 is going to be an excellent year for the UK’s global leadership, with our presidencies of the G7 and COP26 giving us a fantastic opportunity to highlight to the international community what a strong force for good global Britain can and will be. Our values are shared by so many across the world—a liberal democracy and a capitalist society, looking out for our most vulnerable. That is why I am glad that at the G7 summit this year, which is to be hosted by the UK, we are welcoming India, South Korea and Australia—the D10, or the 10 democracies. My hope is that this band of liberal democracies will help the world to stand up to autocratic regimes across the world. The D10 band of countries can be a force for good. While we as a nation have always been a leader, we cannot do it alone. The pandemic has shown the benefits of all countries working together to defeat this virus. This new band of countries is the key to unlocking that change and is the compassionate case for our future as a free trading, independent nation contributing towards humanitarian issues across the world.
We have already made 63 trade agreements with countries around the world. When combined with the trade and co-operation agreement reached with the EU, this covers £885 billion of UK trade. Mutual recognition agreements on conformity assessments have also been separately reached with the US, Australia and New Zealand. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade for all her work and thank her Department for setting the agenda of global Britain as a free trading nation. There has never been a more important time for the UK to be out in the world, delivering on our commitments, helping the most vulnerable and showcasing what the UK has to offer.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jamie Wallis Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)
This Government are committed to engaging business and farmers in our trade negotiations. Last Wednesday, I announced the creation of 11 new trade advisory groups to ensure that trade deals benefit the whole UK, from agriculture to the car industry.
Dr Wallis
I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and thank my right hon. Friend for her answer. In my Bridgend constituency, the Ford factory is imminently to close and we hear that we may not be getting a much hoped for investment from Ineos, so our local economy is more dependent on small and medium-sized enterprises than ever before. What steps is her Department taking to engage with SMEs in particular to find out what they need as we negotiate free trade agreements with the rest of the world?
Elizabeth Truss
We have engaged with SMEs directly, and we are also working through organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce. What we are committed to is negotiating dedicated SME chapters in our trade agreements with the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan to give our fantastic small businesses greater access to those markets.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jamie Wallis Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend makes an important point that there are adversaries and competitors around the world seeking to use this horrendous outbreak not only to exploit our differences, but to further their ambitions. I urge them to focus on the matter at hand, which is tackling covid collectively around the world, rather than taking advantage of that. On the point about the NSC, the decision to call an NSC meeting is a matter for the Government Security Directorate in the Cabinet Office, the Cabinet and the Prime Minister. It is not the case that, by not having such a meeting, we have no agenda on security. We meet the threat every single day and, indeed, many of the decisions made at NSC are enduring and do not need to be refreshed unless there is a major turn of events. We will keep the situation under review, as will, I know, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
On any given day, up to 4,000 men and women of the armed forces support the Government’s response to covid.
Dr Wallis [V]
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in times of crisis such as the current covid-19 pandemic, our best approach is a united one? Can he therefore describe how the military has helped the people of Wales in dealing with covid-19?
Mr Wallace
Joint Military Command Wales has provided mobile decontamination teams and drivers to support the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust. It has also provided general duties personnel to unload PPE from aircraft at Cardiff Airport and transfer it to civilian trucks for onward distribution to Bridgend. As of 10 May, there are 30 military planners also embedded with the Welsh Government.