Protecting Steel in the UK

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

That was a brilliant contribution from the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.

This afternoon, steelworkers from Port Talbot, Llanwern and beyond are up in the Public Gallery. They have come here today to ask the Government to step up after last week’s announcement from Tata. On their behalf, we implore Ministers to pursue, before it is too late, all avenues to secure a longer, fairer transition that supports our steel industry and jobs. We need a meaningful consultation with the trade unions and full consideration of the alternative options that they have proposed, because we want the best for steel, not the cheapest, which is what we have before us.

[Nick Smith]

My hon. Friend is a great champion for steelmaking in Llanwern. Does she agree that the negative impact of the Government’s plans for steel in south Wales will be massive? Will electric arc furnaces be suitable for the Zodiac line at Llanwern?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden]

Indeed, last week’s announcement was devastating for Port Talbot, for the people from Newport who travel to work there, and for communities across wider south Wales. Over 18 months, 2,800 Port Talbot workers have been affected, and Tata expects that 300 further roles could be impacted at Llanwern in Newport East in around three years’ time. As my hon. Friend says, that would affect the Zodiac line, which produces world-class automotive steel and was the best processing line in the world when it was built—it remains one of the best. As the unions have highlighted, Zodiac will, in the short term, be reliant on imports. Big questions remain about the quality of steel produced in electric arc furnaces. These are high-value products, and it is a precarious position for Llanwern to be in.

As has often been repeated in recent days, no matter how the Government dress it up, they are giving Tata £500 million to make 3,000 people redundant. In so doing, they are ending our ability to make virgin steel—the only major economy in the world to do so—and that is shameful. It leaves us reliant on imports at a time when demand for steel, which we will desperately need for our green infrastructure, is only growing, and at greater cost. The imported steel will come over here, as the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft) said, on diesel-fuelled vessels, shipped thousands of miles from countries with lower environmental standards.

It does not have to be so. As others have said, an alternative plan has been proposed by the steel unions. We pay tribute to them for the fight that they put up on behalf of their members. The Syndex plan is credible and based on a phased transition over a decade. Officials at Tata have acknowledged to unions that the union plan was serious and deliverable, but would not commit to the extra funding. The Government must step up, as other countries are doing—in fact, there cannot be a developed country in the world that approaches the matter in a worse way than this one.

Labour will step up. A general election cannot come soon enough for our steel industry. We have long pledged a £3 billion fund to decarbonise UK steel production. This Government’s plan is not a serious one; it is yet another sticking plaster from a Government without a proper industrial strategy. We have had 12 steel Ministers since 2010, and six in the last four years alone.

Let me address the attacks made this week by the Secretary of State for Wales at a time of awful news. This deal was done without Welsh Government or trade union support. Welsh Ministers have repeatedly contacted UK Business Ministers. The First Minister tried to get a phone call with the Prime Minister on Friday but was not allowed one. The Welsh Government have used all the levers that they have. We must not allow the UK Government to make irreversible decisions. Not only is steel part of Wales’s history, but it is vital to our greener future.