Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Sarah Champion

Committee of the whole House
Monday 8th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

As you know, Madam Chair, I have been urging successive Governments for over a decade to back the British steel industry, so it is genuinely a pleasure to be here today as the Government do just that. I support this historic Bill.

Steel is essential for the UK’s economy. It supports thousands of well-paid, skilled jobs and plays a crucial role in ensuring Britain’s security, particularly in an ever more volatile and uncertain world. Yet for years the industry has been allowed to wither. Production has fallen and plants have been lost—and with them jobs, capability and capacity. We simply cannot afford to allow this precipitous decline to go on any longer.

Rotherham is a steel town. It has seen the consequences of past Governments’ neglect up close. Speciality Steel, which is based in Rotherham—and Stocksbridge—should be a crown jewel in our economy, but it has been allowed to lurch from crisis to crisis, choked of investment and left at the mercy of unscrupulous ownership, unfair competition and a lack of vision. The plants currently stand still, shuttered amid the fallout of Liberty’s collapse. The workers are furloughed and uncertain about what their futures hold. I would be grateful if the Minister could update the Committee on the current state of the sale, which is now in its final stages.

My concern is not limited to Speciality Steel. Steel in Rotherham is at the centre of our local economy, and the crisis has had a substantial impact up and down the supply chain. The Minister’s ambition for steel’s renaissance could also be a rebirth for local businesses and local communities, but that requires investment, foresight and commitment. The Government’s steel strategy sets out a strategic vision for the industry and, crucially, delivers real and profound change for the sector as a whole. With £2.5 billion of investment in the sector and an ambitious but achievable target of 50% of the steel used in Britain to be produced here, the strategy is a blueprint for a revitalised domestic steel industry; it is one that has been roundly welcomed by the sector.

Perhaps most importantly, the strategy sets out a new approach to steel imports. Time and again, I and other steel MPs in particular have warned that a failure to tackle cheap, often state-subsidised and heavily polluting imports would destroy any attempt to increase domestic production. Without a level playing field, British steel cannot hope to compete. It is therefore welcome that the Government have acted to protect UK steel producers from unfair competition through a range of new trade measures, quotas and tariffs. While that is good news for steel producers, we do need to get the details right. I thank hon. Members on both sides of the Committee for raising specific examples of that.

Alongside steel producers, Rotherham hosts a large number of steel stockholders and downstream businesses. I have raised with the Government a number of instances in which trade measures have been introduced on products not currently produced in the UK, or where UK production and capacity is far below demand. I urge Ministers to act to ensure that those businesses are not impacted unfairly and that trade measures conform to the realities of the UK market; to do otherwise risks inadvertently harming the very industries and communities that the Government seek to defend.

While the Bill will not have a direct impact on steel production in Rotherham, it does send an important signal. I am proud that the Government are taking resolute action to ensure that they have the necessary tools at their disposal to safeguard the future of British Steel in Scunthorpe. I hope that this will set a precedent as the situation with Speciality Steel develops and that they will take similarly decisive action there, should it prove necessary.

With the right support, British steel can—and should—play an ever greater role in our economy, in infrastructure projects and, crucially, in our national security. I know that steelworkers in Rotherham will be relieved to have a Government who are so clearly on their side—on the side of good jobs and a dynamic economy—and, most importantly, a Government who back British steel.

[Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

I will focus my remarks on clauses 1 to 3 of the Bill and the breadth of the powers that they give to the Secretary of State. I start with the meaning of a “steel undertaking” in clause 1, which is one

“that carries on a business consisting of or including…the manufacture or processing of steel, or…iron”.

As the Minister will know, I raised in an intervention on the Secretary of State on Second Reading—indeed my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin), who speaks from the Front Bench, also mentioned this earlier—that that wording could appear to include undertakings that have as little as 1% of their business in iron or steel.

Gaza Healthcare System

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Sarah Champion

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion]

On a point of order, Sir Jeremy. The subject of the debate is medical healthcare in Gaza, but the shadow Minister is not referring to that at all, apart from a tenuous “relating to healthcare” statement. Can you give some clarity, Sir Jeremy, on whether his speech is on point?

[Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. As she knows, because she heard me intervene in the debate earlier, I have been listening carefully to ensure that speakers keep to the subject of healthcare. As she also heard me say to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), it is perfectly in order for speakers to talk about the context to a degree. I have been listening carefully to the shadow Minister; if what he had said had been out of order, I would have told him so.

I will take the opportunity while I am on my feet to say that the hon. Lady and all Members know that this has been a serious and passionate debate throughout. I hope that Members will respect the fact that passionate contributions from both sides of the argument are perfectly rational and in order, and should be heard with the same respect that all other contributions have been heard with.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Sarah Champion

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

I hear that point and I have heard it made for months now, but I do not agree that that is the only way forward and I am yet to hear the evidence that tells me that it is the best way forward. I would like to develop that point.

As we are not being presented with evidence, the only conclusion I can reach is that the policy is driven by ideology rather than facts. This is not a subject we should be playing with. We need to have evidence and proof. Even a pilot would give us time—that breathing space and that evidence. That is why I support new clause 4. The proposal is being rushed through. The system is over 100 years old and it has served us well in that time; we have been debating the proposal for only the past six months.

I would like to set the record straight once again on Labour’s position. We are not in any way opposed to supporting offenders who have had sentences of under 12 months. We actually tried to bring that support through but were unable to do so. We are very supportive of that, but we question the one way that has been presented to us in which it should be done.

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady is right that the previous Labour Government set out exactly such an aspiration and she is right, too, that they came to the conclusion that they could not achieve it, but does she not accept that they came to that conclusion because they could not find a way of affording it? That is precisely why we have put forward these proposals—it is the only way we can see of affording that extra cost. So far, I have heard nothing to suggest that there is an alternative.

[Sarah Champion]

I support what the Minister says, but there are two points to make. First, we have not been presented with the costs, so we do not know whether it can be afforded. Secondly, I do not agree with the premise that that is the only way to go forward.

Although I would not choose it, we are not fundamentally opposed to commercial companies tendering for and running Government contracts, as long as they are proved to be the best provider. We are also not at any level against voluntary organisations being involved. Indeed, a number of such organisations are providing specialist services in Rotherham, and we want that to continue. I am sure that that is happening across the country. This is not an either/or situation.

I want to use this debate to challenge some of the Government’s reasons for this massive overhaul of our judicial system, in the hope that even just one person in the Chamber will listen to some of the evidence that we are putting forward and question the assumptions that are being made. The underlying assumption is that the existing system is not fit for purpose, yet the National Offender Management Service published a report in July 2012 that demonstrated that the quality of the probation service was either good or exceptional in every single probation trust. After the probation service as a whole won an award for excellence in 2011, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), who was Minister for prisons and probation at the time, said—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

Unfortunately, I cannot explain that, because the plans have not been put before us. I am therefore unable to scrutinise them or to change them to the degree that I would like. I am supporting new clause 1 because I would like the House to be able to debate those matters, but we are not being given the opportunity to do so.

Another assumption that is being presented to us is that probation trusts are failing to reduce reoffending rates, yet reoffending rates are falling. The latest statistics published by the Ministry of Justice show that the probation service reduced reoffending by a further 5% below the target figure. This continues the downward trend in reoffending rates witnessed over recent years, and reoffending by all adult offenders in the community subject to probation supervision is now at its lowest since 2007-08. The probation service has achieved that while making the considerable budgetary savings asked of it. In South Yorkshire, the figures are even better, at 12.77% lower than the target figure.

Reoffending rates are important, but they are not the only criterion for success in this area. The probation service can also boast that victim feedback has been positive in 98% of cases; that targets for completions on domestic violence interventions, and for court report timeliness, have been met and exceeded; and that completion targets were also met or exceeded on the vast majority of probation programmes. The probation trusts are doing a superb job, and they should be allowed to continue to do so.

Another assumption that keeps being mentioned in the debate is that the only way in which supervision for people serving a sentence of under 12 months can be afforded is through privatisation. However, the proposals will necessitate the wholesale reorganisation of the probation service and a lengthy and complex national tendering and contracting process, all of which will require significant investment before we even get to the meat of doing the job. There is huge concern over the lack of information on the cost of the proposals. We have asked for that information, but it has not been presented. Despite the publication of several impact assessments, the Ministry of Justice has yet to set out the cost of the reforms and the way in which they will be funded. This is a fundamental point. If we are expected to take this leap in the dark, at least we should be chucked a lifeboat so that we can get into it.

The current budget for probation is approximately £800 million a year, suggesting a 10-year budget of £8 billion. The House of Commons Library has broadly estimated that the 10-year value of outsourced probation would be between £5 billion and £20 billion. That is in addition to the budget for the remaining public sector probation service. That suggests that a significant increase in costs is being predicted, contrary to Ministry of Justice claims that the reforms are a cost-saving initiative. In addition, there would be the unknown percentage resulting from performance-related pay.

Now it starts to get surreal—not that it was not already. The Government say that the probation service cannot tender because of the performance-related pay aspect, so why do they not just drop that element? The probation trusts have been saying all along that they would like the opportunity to support people serving short-term sentences. They are clearly the best trained and most skilled specialist people to do that work, but they are not even being allowed to tender for it. I find it incredibly challenging that the main stumbling block to retaining the status quo in that area is that the Government will not drop the performance-related pay element.

I support new clauses 5 and 11, but other people want to speak so I shall not say any more about the companies that are tendering for the work. Nor will I go into the whole data protection issue that will result from state, private and voluntary organisations sharing information. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) has already mentioned the logistics of reorganisation and the risks incurred during a transition period. Those risks are enormous. We are not talking about people not getting paid for a week. We are talking about people being out in the community without the necessary supervision, and the potential for the data to collapse around them so that we would not even know where they were.

In conclusion, new clause 1 would prevent the Government from being able to sell off or restructure the probation service unless their proposals had first been laid before, and approved by, both Houses of Parliament. The Government have not given Parliament any opportunity to scrutinise their plans to privatise probation, claiming instead that they can use existing legislation to push the plans through. The only time we have debated this topic is during Opposition day debates. That cannot be democratic. The way in which this has been handled has shaken me to the core.

[Jeremy Wright]

Of course democratic accountability is important. The hon. Lady has mentioned the opportunities the House has had to debate these matters. She has mentioned the Opposition day debate, in which there was a vote and the House voted against her point of view. She has also mentioned the Second Reading debate, after which the House voted against her point of view. She was also in the Committee, where the Committee voted against her point of view. How much more democracy does she need?

[Sarah Champion]

Again, it would be nice to have the evidence; instead, we are debating in the dark. I find it shocking that we had to raise the issue in an Opposition day debate, rather than the Government presenting their findings to us.

For me, it is right and proper that this House should debate the privatisation of 70% of probation services; the fragmentation of the resulting services; the abolition of local probation trusts; the commissioning of services direct from Westminster; and the imposition of an untried, untested payment-by-results model. Instead, the Government are pushing ahead with their half-baked plans for probation privatisation by misusing existing legislation and avoiding parliamentary scrutiny. I can only assume that that decision is driven by political ideology, but this proposal will put the public at risk.

The chairs of the probation trusts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire have written to the Minister to warn him of the dire consequences of rushing this reform through. Those experts say that

“performance is bound to be damaged and that public protection failures will inevitably increase”.

They go on to say that the fragmentation proposed by this Government would lead to

“more systemic risks and more preventable serious attacks and deaths”

and that the current timetable was

“unrealistic and unreasonable...with serious implications for service delivery and therefore increases the risk to public”.

I urge the Minister to listen to the people who know and understand the service best, and to support our proposal in new clause 1.