Jonathan Edwards
Main Page: Jonathan Edwards (Independent - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr)UK Steel Industry
Jonathan Edwards Excerpts
Sajid Javid
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have sector councils for both those industries, and we meet regularly and have a regular dialogue. This is exactly the kind of thing that those sector councils are designed to focus on, and it is exactly the kind of work that they are doing. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I have read some very interesting statistics in the past week. There has been a 43% decline in the foundation industries across the United Kingdom since 2000, but the figure across the other OECD countries is only 21%. Why does the Secretary of State think the decline across the UK since 2000 has been twice that of the other OECD countries?
Sajid Javid
I do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets his numbers from, but this brings me to a useful point. The hon. Member for Wallasey said earlier that I had stated yesterday that manufacturing output in this country had gone up since 2010; she suggested that that was somehow incorrect. I can tell her that manufacturing output has gone up 2.2% in real terms since 2010 and that it is up 18.7% in current prices. Those are the official numbers, and manufacturing employment is also up. If she wants to hear about when manufacturing output actually fell, I can tell her that it was during the last Labour Government, when it fell from 18% of GVA to about 10%.
Stephen Kinnock
I was not surprised. Let me remind the House that 80% of the Chinese steel sector is state owned. On what planet can that be considered a market economy? I leave that to the House to decide.
The Secretary of State’s claims that he has been working on these things for months simply do not stack up. Yesterday, both in this House and at the APPG meeting, he claimed to have been aware of Tata’s decision to sell before it was publicly announced. If that was the case and if he really knew what was coming, why on earth was he on the other side of the world when the board meeting was taking place? Why was he caught so unaware? If he really was in the know as he claims to have been, why did he have to rush back to the UK in a mad panic?
The Secretary of State also boasted yesterday that it was his actions and his actions alone that prevented Tata from closing rather than selling Port Talbot and the rest of its strip products division. I must admit that my jaw hit the floor when I heard that claim. I was out in Mumbai. I was there for the board meeting with Roy Rickhuss and Community. The Secretary of State was not. Tata has expressed deep disappointment and frustration with the lack of support that it has received from this Government. We have seen delayed action on energy compensation, with many companies still waiting to receive their money, and weasel words on procurement from a Government who got the steel for the latest set of Ministry of Defence frigates from Sweden. Above all, Tata saw a Government who refused to support the steel sector in tackling Chinese dumping by opposing trade defence reforms, while championing market economy status for China. Therefore, this supposedly pro-business Government's influence on Tata is very limited. What really made the difference was Community’s high profile “Save our Steel” campaign, and the fact that Labour MPs have raised the issue of steel on more than 200 separate occasions since the general election.
The clock is ticking. Tata has said that it will give the sale “all due time”. Yesterday’s news about Scunthorpe took almost nine months, and it is still not fully complete. The deal on Port Talbot and the rest of Tata’s strip operations may also take time. Let us therefore hope that today’s debate marks a step change in attitude and action by the Government. Let us hope that they work proactively to protect the entirety of the order book and that they save the future of the heavy end in Port Talbot,
Jonathan Edwards
The hon. Gentleman will know that his colleagues in the Welsh Government have spent £80 million on a conference centre in Newport and £58 million on the airport in Cardiff. Does he think that the £60 million allocated to Tata in Port Talbot is sufficient?