Britain’s Industrial Future

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who has led the steel MPs on this side of the Chamber, and has often led cross-party as well, in fighting the cause of steel communities. As he says, a core foundation industry is crucial to jobs and prosperity; to our national defence and security, with its role in procurement in defence; and to decarbonisation for climate security. It is right that we should be supporting our steel industry and our other core industries.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it has not helped that since 2010 we have had 11 Ministers responsible for steel, including six in the past few years alone? It is impossible for the industry and unions to have an ongoing dialogue with the Government for a long-term vision for steel.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, and I suspect that even if Ministers will not admit it publicly, they would say so privately too. I mentioned that I wrote to the Secretary of State two weeks ago. I am disappointed that I have not had an answer sooner, given the scale of the challenge and the emergency facing so many parts of the steel industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to be called in this debate to talk, like other hon. Members, about the steel industry, which is so important to, and at the heart of, the community I have the privilege to represent.

In Prime Minister’s questions last week, I had the opportunity to challenge the Prime Minister on the Government’s lack of support for the steel industry. I welcomed his recognition of the importance of the sector to the economy and our communities up and down the country. However, I worry that that was just another set of warm words from a Government who only ever seem to react to crises in the industry when things get desperate, but refuse to implement any kind of long-term plan for steel, a sector that should be the cornerstone of a forward-looking green industrial strategy. The ask was set out excellently by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) earlier and has been well rehearsed in the many debates on steel we have had in this place.

We only have to look at the rate of turnover of BEIS Ministers to get a sense of just how unfocused the Government have been over the last 12 years. Since 2010, we have had 11 responsible Ministers, including six over the last three years alone. I am not sure, even today, exactly who is the steel Minister in BEIS, because there is no list of responsibilities on the website and no answers to the parliamentary questions we have tabled. Will the Minister please tell us in his closing remarks who the steel Minister is? That crude lack of continuity makes it incredibly hard for representatives from the industry—steel unions, UK Steel and parliamentarians—to engage constructively with the Government and, perhaps harder still, for the Government to develop a strategy to ensure a long-term future for an industry that is of such vital strategic importance to our sovereign capability and national security. [Interruption.] From the look of the note that has just been written, the Minister is asking who the steel Minister is.

If we as steel MPs are frustrated, that is nothing compared to how steelworkers feel. Speaking to union reps from Tata Llanwern and Liberty on Friday, there is a real concern for the future and a sense that opportunities could tragically be lost. There are huge challenges for our industry at the moment. At Tata Llanwern, the average age of the workforce has fallen from 53 to 32 in recent years. The young members of the workforce, having shone with the benefit of high-quality training, are performing everything they are asked to do, but, given the anxieties that hang over the whole sector, these young multiskilled workers are now worried about their mortgages and their futures. Some of those worries relate to immediate problems the industry is facing, including falling demand in the construction and automotive sectors. Llanwern produces world-class automotive steel for Jaguar Land Rover, which has slowed down its production. Looking to the longer term, there is also exasperation with the lack of vision shown by the Government and their failure to stump up the investment funding or work with the industry to help companies decarbonise. Steelworkers feel neglected at a time when their contribution has never been so vital to our economy. We know that the world cannot decarbonise without steel, whether it is for use in wind turbines, electric vehicles, energy-efficient buildings or other green infrastructure. The steel sector is committed to the transition to net zero, but it needs a policy framework that will support, not hinder, it. The Government must provide a solution to allow the industry to invest in decarbonisation.

Energy prices remain a huge issue, with steelmakers still paying well over the odds compared with our continental counterparts. That point was made well by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, who outlined the help that the German Government are giving their industry. We are not being as generous. We also need longer-term reforms to bring down electricity prices beyond the difficult winter ahead, akin to those implemented in France and Germany.

Let us not forget that the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), made reduced energy costs for the steel sector an important promise during the Brexit campaign. Six years on, we are still lagging behind. On that note, the Government should also follow the EU in closing the loophole for the sanctions regime against Moscow that still allows indirect imports of Russian steel from third countries and create a UK steel innovation fund using the £200 million refund from the research fund for coal and steel.

We need Ministers to set ambitious targets for the use of UK steel content in public procurement, as has been said. This is a really important industry, with more than 76,000 jobs in the UK. As a steelworker at Llanwern said to me this week, the UK steel industry is less well equipped to weather the global storm than overseas competitors. He also said:

“in an insecure and unstable world, how can we not produce steel?”