Science, innovation and technology Committee
Judith Cummins Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
We now come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. Dame Chi Onwurah will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions, not full speeches. I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair, not the relevant Government Minister. Front Benchers may take part in questioning.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this statement from the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee on our report, “Science diplomacy: Sovereignty, strategy and the global race”. I am pleased to see members of the Committee in the Chamber. I want to put on record my thanks to the Committee Clerks and specialists who have supported this inquiry, as well as the many witnesses who gave evidence.
I may have mentioned before that I am proud to be a chartered engineer with over 20 years of experience in industry, and for 16 years, I have been an engineer in the House, but as my friends, family and perhaps too many of my colleagues will attest, I am not a diplomat. In chairing this inquiry, I have learned much about the essential work of our diplomatic service and the international work of so many organisations and institutions, from the Royal Society to our armed forces. I thank them for their contribution. We found—the football analogy I am about to use was in the report even before England’s amazing win over Mexico—that the UK is in the premier league when it comes to scientific strengths and our global diplomatic network, but we do not know where we stand when it comes to science diplomacy. We launched our inquiry in April last year to examine how the UK Government should leverage scientific research and innovation to support its diplomatic goals, growth missions and national security. We held five public sessions and received over 50 written submissions. As the topic is so broad, we chose to look at the issues through three lenses: health and life sciences, quantum, and space. We also chose to focus on the UK Government’s strategy for science diplomacy, and its implications for sovereignty and research security, as part of the wider topic.
First of all, we found that the UK has failed to adapt to the pace of geopolitics. The geopolitical landscape has been turned upside down in recent years. Alongside rapid technological advancement, this has made science diplomacy more important than ever. I will give three quick examples to illustrate this. First, the global talent fund was the UK’s attempt to capitalise on the US retreat from science funding, but as it does not address the huge up-front costs faced by researchers, it is unlikely to have the impact that the Government desired. As of June this year, just 18 researchers had been announced as taking up new roles through the fund. That is not going to move any dials.
Secondly, while the Committee recognises that overseas development assistance spending has been reduced to allow the defence budget to be increased, our report highlights the short-sighted nature of some of the cuts that followed, and the impact on ODA for research and development.
Thirdly, the UK-US pharmaceutical agreement has secured benefits—notably, exemptions from tariffs—but it also appears to have involved significant commitments affecting core elements of UK domestic policy. Although the global nature of the pharmaceuticals sector means that trade negotiations will inevitably have an impact on it, surely decisions about NHS spending, pricing and access to medicines should primarily be driven by the needs of UK patients, and balanced with the sustainability of the life sciences sector.
Our second key finding was that there is a lack of overarching strategy. Witnesses consistently cited the strengths of the UK’s research base. Though we have less than 1% of the worldwide population, we have 6% of global publications and receive one 12th of global citations. We found that the Government have not articulated a coherent strategic framework for science diplomacy, despite those strengths. Such a framework should set out priority partners and technologies, and the intended outcomes of partnerships.
For the six frontier technologies in the digital and technologies sector plan, and for space, the Government should bring forward detailed cross-governmental strategies, accompanied by clear delivery plans. The forthcoming plan for space provides an important opportunity to do that. The report also describes the Government’s approach to international scientific agreements and science diplomacy as “opportunistic”.
Thirdly, we found that in a geopolitical landscape that, as I said, has been turned upside down, the UK is in a global race for sovereign capability, whether it acknowledges it or not. The US’s decision to ban foreigners’ access to Anthropic’s most powerful artificial intelligence models was a watershed moment that proved—to mix metaphors, perhaps—that there is actually a kill switch. The Government must reflect on this when considering our ambitions for secure sovereign capability.
Although the own-collaborate-access framework provides a useful foundation for prioritising the UK’s approaches to critical technology, it is applied at too high a level to actually influence and guide decision making. There are so many definitions of “sovereignty” circulating. That impedes our ability to give our international stakeholders clear signals, and prevents businesses from getting the signals that they need to apply their resources—skills, investment, research and development—to the technologies that the Government will procure on a sovereign basis.
The UK is highly successful at generating world-leading research and innovation, but less so in turning that strength into the growth of high-tech domestic companies. Too many UK-developed technologies are forced to look abroad to scale. The private sector needs clearer investment signals. Yesterday at the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s evidence session, the Secretary of State emphasised frontier models, computer chips and compute as parts of the AI tech stacks that she would like to have sovereign capability in. We need more clarity like that.
To finish, we have four areas of recommendation. On global policy, our report calls on the Government to strengthen the UK’s international science and technology position through a clearer strategy, greater investment and improved resilience. On strategy, we call on the Government to publish a coherent science diplomacy strategy, with clear criteria for decisions on science partnerships, and with explicit strategies for engagement with the US and the EU, Commonwealth partners, other middle powers and competitors such as Russia and China. On sovereignty, the Government should define what “technological sovereignty” means when it comes to critical technologies and particularly AI, identify key dependencies in supply chains, and use that analysis to guide investment and procurement decisions. To support innovation, we recommend improving scale-up capital, expanding specialist investment funds and using public procurement more strategically to help UK technology firms grow. Finally, on research security, and with the recent Biobank leak in mind, our report calls for stronger research security guidance, improved information sharing between Government and institutions such as universities, and a cross-Government plan to develop a sustainable domestic skills pipeline in critical scientific and technological fields.
The UK’s excellence in research and innovation is a distinct strategic advantage. To sustain it, we urge the Government to outline a science diplomacy strategy. Through such a strategy, we can ensure that science diplomacy remains a driver of progress, as well as a pillar of soft power.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I start by thanking the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee and its entire membership for the publication of a very interesting and timely report. Business, academia and the whole tech sector needs clarity, in some ways more than anything else. Does the Chair share my concerns, which are stated quite well in the report, that
“The government has repeatedly outlined that building sovereign capability is a ‘critical priority’ for the UK but has not been clear on exactly what this means or how it might be measured”?
There are lots of different definitions of sovereignty being bandied around, which mean lots of different things in different contexts. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need some clarity on what exactly it means in this sector when we use the word “sovereignty”?
Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban
Judith Cummins Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call Abtisam Mohamed, who will speak for up to 15 minutes.
Summer Jobs
Judith Cummins Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Chris Bryant
To be fair to the shadow Minister, I do not think he intends to send children up the chimneys any more. That was his policy a few years ago, or maybe his predecessor’s policy, but it is not his policy any more. It is not quite “Planet Earth that the Opposition are on, to quote Duran Duran, but they are close to it.
The Opposition motion talks a lot about regret. It regrets the Employment Rights Act 2025, the national insurance contributions, and so on. I am afraid that it tempts me to give my notorious Édith Piaf impersonation:
“Non, rien de rien…Je me fous du passé”.
What is missing from these regrets of the Opposition? They have no regrets about helping draft the kami-Kwasi Budget that led to the fastest ever increase in mortgage rates, sending millions of families into unaffordable debt; no regrets about the biggest fall in living standards for two centuries; no regrets about slashing our public services, including the NHS, local government and our armed forces; no regrets about 14 years of anaemic economic growth. No regrets? No, I have regrets. I regret that the Conservatives ever got into power. I regret that they have become Mrs Thatcher’s moaning Minnies. I regret that they left us with a nation divided against itself, but I do not regret the Employment Rights Act—I am proud of it.
To be clear, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have not moved the amendment, and I am not moving it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. Members might like to know that I aim to call the first Front-Bench spokesperson at about 3.35 pm.
Commonhold and Leasehold Reform: Managing Agents
Judith Cummins Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Before we come to the debate on commonhold and leasehold reform, I inform that House that permission to appeal has been granted following the judgment on the judicial review brought forward by ARC Time Freehold Income Authorised Fund and others over the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. The case is therefore sub judice. Mr Speaker has granted a waiver to allow Members to discuss fully the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee report on the implications of the Government’s draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill. I call Florence Eshalomi, who will speak for up to 15 minutes.
James Asser (West Ham and Beckton) (Lab)
I am dealing with huge numbers of groups of leaseholders, and one of the things we have discovered—with the managing agent very much as my hon. Friend is describing —is this habit of subcontracting, only for the leaseholders to find that the subcontractors are owned by the same company; the name has just been changed. When we raised this point, the answer we got from FirstPort last week was, “We can do what we want.” Does that not reinforce my hon. Friend’s argument about regulation?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Before the hon. Lady rises, I remind Members that this is a very oversubscribed debate, and I am sure that many people want to speak.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and wish him a happy birthday—I am sure a good birthday present for him would be the regulation of managing agents for the sake of his constituents. Self-regulation does not work when there is no real enforcement, and leaseholders were clear with us that they do not just want mandatory qualifications. As Lord Best put it in his evidence to the Committee,
“being qualified doesn’t necessarily make people behave properly; you still need a code of practice and enforcement”.
What we need is a regulator with teeth—one that will issue meaningful sanctions against agents that treat homeowners like a revenue stream. For the worst offenders, that should include the removal of their licence to operate.
I should acknowledge that our inquiry heard from some campaigners who were concerned that regulation could add to the costs passed on to leaseholders via service charges. On balance, though, we think that regulation is now necessary to protect all leaseholders from rogue managing agents. The reality is that some leaseholders will not be able to convert to commonhold—some blocks will not be able to meet the 50% threshold to convert, and some blocks will have special features that mean they are not eligible. We cannot leave those homeowners behind.
Ultimately, commonhold is a vast improvement, but it will not always be as simple as hiring and firing agents. Commonholds are likely to appoint managing agents on contracts that last for several years, and they need to have confidence that they are appointing high-quality service providers. An independent code of practice would provide that assurance, so overall we think it would be a valuable addition to the final Bill—one that would benefit homeowners. Homeowners want a crackdown on poorly performing agents like FirstPort, with a regulator that has teeth and can deliver.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for raising the important issue of marriage value and the extension of leases, with many people having to take out additional loans just to remortgage and extend their lease. All these areas are covered in the draft Bill, and I know the Minister is keen to address them.
The Bill will be an opportunity to impact the lives of millions of constituents across England and Wales who bought their homes in good faith. We must all take responsibility for keeping this topic on the agenda and ensuring that the final Bill comes back to this Chamber in the autumn to make progress through Parliament—we cannot allow this issue to be swept away by events that are happening outside this place or that are beyond our control.
Our Committee’s report sets out the blueprint for the changes needed to make the Bill a bolder, more ambitious piece of legislation. With an independent regulator, we can ensure that all homeowners see a real change in the short term. I therefore urge Members across the House to support today’s motion; leaseholders’ expectations have been set very high, so it is vital that we get the reforms right. If we do so, this will be the Parliament that finally allows leaseholders to realise their dream of home ownership, making them true homeowners with the control they have been promised.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
We will start with an immediate four-minute time limit.
Steel Trade Measure
Judith Cummins Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Minister for Trade (Chris Bryant)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement on our steel trade measure, which will come into force on Wednesday 1 July.
Let me start with first principles. The UK needs a strong steel sector, both in production and downstream, but the whole sector is facing an existential moment. Fifty years ago, the UK produced 27 million tonnes of steel a year, and even in 2010 we produced 12 million tonnes, but in 2024 we produced just 4 million tonnes and met just 30% of UK steel needs.
No Government can or should ever accept such a sharp decline in an industry that forms the backbone of so many other sectors, including defence. We promised that, in government, we would do two things in tandem. First, we promised to launch a steel strategy to tackle all the key issues facing the sector in the round. That strategy, which we published on 19 March, includes up to £2.5 billion of Government investment on top of the £500 million pledged for steelworks at Port Talbot, plus active support for this energy-intensive sector through the British industry supercharger. Secondly, we said that we would introduce a robust new steel trade measure that secures the future of the UK’s steel industry, to protect our ability to produce steel for defence and critical national infrastructure. Today, I will address the latter point.
Why do we need the steel trade measure? A key part of the existential threat to UK steel production is global overcapacity, a lack of transparency about international subsidies and artificially depressed global prices, all of which price UK steel out of the market. For the past eight years, UK steel production has enjoyed some protection thanks to the UK’s steel safeguard, which it inherited from the EU. That allowed us to protect categories of steel manufactured in the UK with quotas and a 25% out-of-quota tariff. That protection, which was introduced by the previous Government, was clearly not sufficient, as our steel sector has continued to suffer. In the seven years under the safeguard, up to 2024, steel production has continued to fall by 3.3 million tonnes—a stunning further 45%.
We now face a key moment. That safeguard must legally expire on 30 June, as World Trade Organisation rules firmly prevent an extension of a safeguard beyond eight years—it is precisely the same for the EU. If we put nothing in its place, our steel production sector will lose all its protection. That would not just bring our steel industry to its knees; it would kill it completely. That is why I promised the House that I would not allow a gap between the expiry of the safeguard and the implementation of our future steel trade measures. We are making good on that promise today.
There is an additional concern. Canada, the United States and the EU have already put in place similar toughened measures to protect their industries, so if we do nothing, or if we delay the introduction of new measures, we will immediately become the global dumping ground for cheap steel from across the world. Again I say: that would mean the end of UK steel production. That is why we must take similar action to the European Union, which announced its measure on 7 October last year. Earlier this year, we committed to introduce a 50% out-of-quota tariff on imported steel, and in April we published provisional quotas for several key categories of steel. This measure needs to work not just for our steel producers but for our manufacturers, who depend on steel—those who source it from the UK and those who source it from abroad. Our aim is solely to protect categories of steel that we produce in the UK, so we have deliberately excluded many categories from the measure. To be absolutely clear, nearly three quarters of UK steel imports by value, and 53% by volume, are out of scope of this measure.
Today I announce the final design of our steel trade measure, which will take effect on the same day as the measures imposed by the European Union. The total quota volume will now be 3.2 million metric tonnes. That is an increase of over 560,000 metric tonnes of steel that can be imported tariff-free compared with the provisional volumes that we announced—a significant 21% uplift. Today’s announcement includes the final quotas in each category. Having listened to Members and industry, we have increased the quotas in several instances so as more accurately to protect categories of steel that are manufactured in the UK.
Some of the changes reflect the fact that the European Union remains our largest export market for steel and that we have highly interconnected supply chains. Since we announced our measure in March, we have engaged intensively with the European Union and UK industry. We have reached a mutual outcome with the EU as a result of those discussions. On our side, we will increase the EU’s quota access from the announced 1.58 million tonnes to 2.08 million tonnes, and the EU will announce quotas under its own measure shortly. That will provide stability for UK-EU steel trade from 1 July while we continue to work together to strengthen UK-EU steel trade in the longer term. We have also worked closely with our international partners, and we are committed to constructive engagement with them on our steel measure. We will continue to prioritise working with our partners to tackle overcapacity.
I want to be very honest with colleagues: there are tough trade-offs here. We are determined to ensure that steel continues to be forged and made in the UK by proud steelmaking communities across the UK—in Port Talbot, Motherwell, Scunthorpe, Sheffield and on Teesside. The Labour movement was forged in these communities, just as steel was, and we will not let them down. But we know that businesses will sometimes need to find specialised steel that we simply cannot procure in the UK. In those cases, quotas have been designed to allow for imports and to ensure continued availability for UK businesses without unnecessary additional costs. To ensure continuity within supply chains for business, we are also introducing a transitional arrangement. That means that our new trade measure will not apply to steel under contract before 14 March, and imported between 1 July and 30 September. We will conduct a review after 12 months and actively monitor implementation of the measure from day one to ensure that it operates as intended and remains responsive to emerging evidence and stakeholder feedback.
There are some who think that steel is an industry of the past. Others think that the market alone should provide—“Just buy it as cheap as you can, whatever the cost to British industry.” I could not disagree more, because I know how that script runs. We buy cheap this year and next year, and maybe for a decade. Unable to compete, our national steel industry dies in the meantime. Every single UK steel mill closes. Then suddenly, miraculously, the global price rockets up, and we have nowhere to turn because we are caught in a trap of our own making. I fully understand the concerns of those who worry about this measure, and will seek to address them, but I say to them that this is in the interests of the whole sector—producers and users alike.
Finally, I will be hosting a drop-in surgery for Members on Monday 29 June from 3.15 pm to 5 pm, where colleagues can meet with me and officials to discuss any concerns and to understand the impact of this measure on the particular businesses in their constituency. I hope that will be of convenience to Members.
I would especially like to thank my officials, including Beth Sedgwick, Malte Werner and Chris Taylor, and the wonderful Lola Oates in my private office, for all the work they have done on this. I commend this statement to the House.
Chris Bryant
That is an extremely well made point. Gun barrel manufacturing is being done in the UK again thanks to a Sheffield Forgemasters contract that has been secured. We need to bring more of these categories back into UK production. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend. She might want to come along to the surgery that I am doing on Monday afternoon with officials. If she wants to talk to me, she knows how to find me. She is absolutely right that we need to increase the total quantity of steel that we are producing in the UK, protect what we are already doing and find new areas where we can produce steel. We will never do that unless we introduce tough protections in trade measures to deal with the problem of global overcapacity.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Steel matters. It matters for our national security, our defence and our critical infrastructure, and it sustains jobs right across the United Kingdom. British Steel supports thousands of jobs and over a billion pounds of economic activity through its own operations and supply chain. It also underpins hundreds of thousands more jobs and several billion pounds of activity across the industries that depend on it. It has been battered by Trump’s trade war and by years of unfair practices from China.
Steel is an industry worth defending, and Liberal Democrats support that goal, but we have been vocal about our concerns regarding the impact of the Government’s proposed tariffs on downstream manufacturers. Downstream steel-using industries employ 300,000 people, including some of my Hazel Grove constituents. A blanket approach risks weakening a far larger manufacturing jobs base while doing little to protect British steel.
I am pleased that the Government have listened to our concerns and to those of industry. The quota increase and product code removals are positive steps, so I have just three questions. First, categories 14 and 27 cover specialist steels required by aerospace, defence, Formula 1 and precision engineering, which cannot be sourced domestically in the required grades and volumes. Do those categories fall within the 11 product codes that have been removed from the arrangements? Secondly, the transitional arrangements only protect contracts signed before 14 March. What protection exists for manufacturers who have signed contracts in good faith between March and today? Thirdly, the WTO process will begin in the autumn. Will the Minister confirm that any permanent tariff increases resulting from that process will not permanently lock in higher tariffs on specialist steels that cannot be sourced domestically?
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that in a former life, the Minister was punctilious about standards in this House, so I seek your advice as to how he may correct the record. He referred to a letter that I believe he said his office had received this morning or yesterday. In fact, the Department will have received copies of two letters, one which was sent a week ago, not on my behalf, but on behalf of hundreds of thousands of small manufacturing businesses that were desperately worried, with one week to go before the tariffs. There was a second letter on Tuesday, jointly from me and the shadow Defence Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), again, sent on behalf of this vital industry, which keeps us all safe. I have not yet received a reply to either of those. I would not necessarily have expected to, but it would not be right for the record to reflect that he had only received the letter this morning.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The Minister is in his place and may wish to respond.
Chris Bryant
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the correction. I am terribly sorry; I was only referring to the latter letter. We have had a lot of letters on this, and I appreciate that lots of Members have written to Ministers about it. We tried to respond as quickly as we could, once we had settled the final quotas. I wanted to come to the House to be clear on precisely what we have done, in order to meet some of the concerns. I do try to answer my letters as punctiliously as I can. You do not have to have been a priest in the Church of England to do that, though God is working Her purpose out, as year succeeds to year.
Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill
Judith Cummins ExcerptsTuesday 9th June 2026
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 View all Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 9 June 2026 - (9 Jun 2026)
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Judith Cummins)
Under the Order of the House of 21 May, we shall now move to the Committee of the whole House. I remind Members that in Committee they should not address the Chair as “Deputy Speaker”. Please use our names when addressing the Chair. “Madam Chair, “Chair” and “Madam Chairman” are also acceptable.
Clause 52
Compensation scheme regulations
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I beg to move amendment 7, page 34, line 15, at end insert—
“(5A) Compensation scheme regulations must include provision which specifies that payment of compensation may be made until any written estimate under section 54 (4A) is laid before Parliament.”
This amendment works with Amendments 8 and 9 so as to require regulations to specify that payment of compensation cannot be made until the Secretary of State has published a written estimate of the environmental liabilities of the steel undertaking, provided to them by the independent valuer.
The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 52 and 53 stand part.
Amendment 8, clause 54, page 35, line 25, leave out “may—
(a) require or permit”
and insert—
“must—
(a) require”.
See explanatory statement for Amendment 7.
Amendment 9, page 35, line 34, at end insert—
“(4A) The regulations must—
(a) provide that the independent valuer prepares and submits to the Secretary of State a written estimate of the environmental liabilities of that undertaking, including but not limited to—
(i) contamination of land, water or air attributable to the undertaking’s operations;
(ii) compliance with environmental obligations imposed by or under any enactment; and
(iii) remediation or restoration costs that are contingent or prospective;
(b) provide that the Secretary of State must publish and lay any written estimate provided under this subsection before Parliament.”
See explanatory statement for Amendment 7.
Amendment 6, page 35, line 40, at end insert—
“(c) the anticipated effects of—
(i) external tariffs on UK industry; and
(ii) the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, as set out by Part 5 of the Finance Act 2026 on the value of a steel undertaking.”
This amendment would require consideration of external tariffs and the implementation of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, when conducting a valuation of the Steel undertaking.
Clauses 54 to 57 stand part.
Amendment 20, clause 58, page 39, line 7, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State may only provide financial assistance under this section if they are satisfied that financial assistance will secure value for money.”
This amendment would only allow the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance if the NAO had concluded that it would secure value for money for taxpayers.
Amendment 22, page 39, line 8, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State may not in any five-year period provide financial assistance under this section of an amount that exceeds £1 million per employee of the steel undertaking.
(1B) The number of employees of a steel undertaking for the purpose of subsection (1A) is the number of persons employed on the date the financial assistance was first provided.
(1C) ‘employee’ has the meaning given by section 230 (Employees, workers etc.) of the Employment Rights Act 1996.”
This amendment would cap the amount of financial assistance that could be provided to a steel undertaking to £1 million per worker over 5 years.
Amendment 24, page 39, line 24, at end insert—
“(4A) Financial assistance under this section may not include funding provided by the National Wealth Fund.”
This amendment prevents money from the National Wealth Fund being used to provide financial assistance under this Act.
Clause 58 stand part.
Amendment 4, clause 59, page 39, line 29, insert at end “and,
(b) compensation paid under any compensation scheme regulations made under section 52.”
This amendment requires the Government to report on the compensation paid under any compensation scheme regulations made under section 52.
Amendment 10, page 39, line 31, leave out “12” and insert “3”
This amendment together with Amendment 14 would increase the frequency with which the Secretary of State must make reports about financial assistance to every three months.
Amendment 11, page 39, line 33, leave out “12” and insert “3”
See explanatory note for Amendment 13.
Clauses 59 and 60 stand part.
New clause 6—Parliamentary scrutiny of Financial Assistance—
“(1) Before providing any assistance under section 58, the Secretary of State must lay a proposal for providing the financial assistance (‘the proposal’) before Parliament.
(2) No financial assistance may be provided under section 58 unless the proposal has been laid before Parliament.
(3) If, within the period of 90 days after the proposal has been laid, a select committee of the House of Commons makes any recommendations with regard to the proposal, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement setting out the Secretary of State’s response to the recommendations before providing any financial assistance.
(4) The proposal must include—
(a) details of the nature and amount of the financial assistance,
(b) the intended beneficiary or beneficiaries of the financial assistance,
(c) the expected purpose and effect of the financial assistance,
(d) any conditions, repayment arrangements, guarantees, indemnities or other liabilities attaching to the financial assistance, and
(e) any other information the Secretary of State believes it is necessary for the Committee to have in order to complete its consideration of the proposal, subject to the restrictions in subsection (3).
(5) The proposal may not include information which, if it were made public, may damage—
(a) national security;
(b) fiduciary duties; or
(c) commercially sensitive interests.”
This new clause prevents financial assistance being provided until 90 days after information about the package of financial assistance being made available to a Select Committee of the House of Commons for its consideration.
New clause 12—Financial assistance: limit—
“Financial assistance of a total value of no more than £2.5 billion may be provided under section 58 of this Act before 15 August 2029.”
This new clause would limit the financial assistance that can be provided under the Act.
New clause 13—Financial assistance: England and Wales—
“Where financial assistance is provided to steel undertakings in England under section 58 of this Act, an equivalent to the total amount of financial assistance provided to steel undertakings in England must be made available to steel undertakings in Wales.”
This new clause requires equivalent funding to be provided to steel undertakings in Wales compared to those in England.
Clauses 61 to 64 stand part.
New clause 7—Impact assessments—
“Before exercising any power under this Act, the Secretary of State must publish an impact assessment on the proposed exercise of that power.”
This new clause would require an impact assessment to be published before the Secretary of State exercised any of the powers under the Act.
New clause 4—Limit on expenditure on financial assistance and compensation—
“(1) The total amount of compensation paid by the Secretary of State under Part 2 and financial assistance paid under section 58 is limited to—
(a) £500m, or
(b) an amount so authorised by resolution of the House of Commons, whichever is higher.”
This new clause prevents the Secretary of State from paying more than £500m in financial assistance and compensation under the Act, unless the House of Commons passes a resolution authorising them to do so.
New clause 9—Duty to try to find a private sector purchaser for any nationalised steel undertaking—
“Where a steel undertaking has been subject to the principal transfer power under this Act, the Secretary of State must—
(a) make all practicable efforts to find a private sector purchaser for the steel undertaking; and
(b) lay a report before Parliament every six months which sets out progress made towards finding a private sector purchaser for the steel undertaking.”
This new clause would put a duty on the Secretary of State to seek a private sector buyer for any steel company that has been nationalised, and report to Parliament on progress made every six months.
New clause 10—Report on the impact any nationalisation of steel undertakings has had on inward investment to the United Kingdom—
“Within six months of the passing of this Act and every subsequent six months, the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament which sets out the impact that nationalisation of any steel undertaking under this Act has had on inward investment to the United Kingdom.”
This new clause would place a duty on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact any nationalisation of steel undertakings has had on inward investment to the United Kingdom.
New clause 11—State aids—
“The Secretary of State must not exercise the powers in this Act so as to grant any advantage through state resources on a selective basis to any organisations that could potentially distort competition and trade, including any advantage that might be granted to steel undertakings subject to a transfer power over comparable privately-owned steel undertakings in the United Kingdom.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to maintain a level playing-field between nationally owned and privately owned steel businesses.
Sarah Olney
We heard throughout yesterday’s debate from Members across the Committee about the importance of steelmaking as a vital strategic sector in the UK, and no doubt we will hear about it again today. We rely on the sector for essential parts of our national infrastructure, for transport and for advanced manufacturing. Steelmaking and the industry more broadly create thousands of good jobs across the country, helping to power our economy and boost our local communities, and in increasingly uncertain times, it is essential to support our defence industry.
We on the Liberal Democrat Benches therefore broadly welcome this legislation as a temporary, emergency and targeted step aimed specifically at turning around British Steel before it can be returned to the private sector, and we note that it is in that spirit that British steel producers also support these measures. We need to see more ambition and clarity in the delivery of the steel strategy—for example, when it comes to boosting domestic production to meet 50% of domestic steel demand, further incentivising the use of British-made steel in the private sector and managing the transition to electric arc furnaces.
I wish to speak in favour of amendments 7, 8 and 9. These would strengthen the treatment of environmental liabilities in relation to the steel undertaking and ensure that they were explicitly identified and accounted for before compensation payments were made. They highlight the principle that the true financial position of an undertaking cannot be properly understood without a clear and transparent assessment of its environmental liabilities. By accepting the amendments, the legislation could work as a package to ensure that environmental liabilities were not only considered but formally assessed, published and laid before Parliament.
In particular, the amendments would require an independent valuer to prepare a written estimate of the environmental liabilities associated with the undertaking, including contamination of land, water or air; compliance with environmental obligations; and current and future remediation or restoration costs. That would ensure that the full environmental cost of the undertaking’s operation was properly captured, including liabilities that might not yet have crystallised but were none the less foreseeable. Crucially, the amendments would link the process to the timing of compensation payments, specifying that compensation could not be paid until the environmental liabilities estimate had been produced and presented, and ensuring that taxpayers were not left to pick up the bill for any environmental damage caused by the company’s previous owners.
Furthermore, I wish to speak in favour of amendment 6. This amendment would require that when carrying out a valuation of the steel undertaking, consideration was explicitly given to the impact of external tariffs and the carbon border adjustment mechanism. It reflects the reality that the value of a steel business is not determined solely by its internal operations and that it is also significantly influenced by international trade conditions and environmental policy frameworks.
The previous Conservative Government oversaw a string of near collapses and interim last-minute packages. They scrapped the industrial strategy, which is so vital to our manufacturers, and they erected new trade barriers, making it harder for our steel producers to do business with their biggest export market across the channel. This legislation should be much more ambitious on an improved agreement with the EU for steel exports. Given the international nature of the steel market and the growing importance of carbon-related border adjustments, it is reasonable that these factors should be explicitly included in valuation methodologies. Amendment 6 would help to ensure that any valuation was not artificially insulated from key external drivers of cost and competitiveness. It would also provide a more accurate basis for decision making.
Sarah Olney
That is not the specific purpose of the amendment, but I am glad that the hon. Member has raised that point. I know that the Minister has heard about this issue on a number of occasions, throughout the debates on this Bill and during the urgent question last week in the Chamber. I would like to take this opportunity to reinforce the point that has been made on multiple occasions across this House about the tariff regime and the changes that are coming in. I have spoken to a number of manufacturers about the very real concerns right across the sector about the changes in tariffs. I know that the Minister is focused on that, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving us another opportunity to raise concerns with the Minister, which I know he has heard.
Amendment 5 would extend the Government’s reporting obligations to include progress on negotiations with the European Union—
The First Deputy Chairman
Order. I remind the hon. Lady that amendment 5 has not been selected and so would be out of scope for this debate.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Perkins
Thank you very much, Madam Chair—that was a pleasant surprise.
I do not intend to detain the Committee for long, but I will take this opportunity to welcome the Government’s steps in the Bill, which build on the steps that we took with the emergency legislation that ensured a future for Scunthorpe. We all recognise that steelmaking is part of our national security. Without steel capability, we are simply unable to be truly independent in military terms or in many other terms. The commitment of the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister to ensuring a future for British Steel is not only sensible and ambitious, but a welcome change from the policies that were pursued by previous Prime Ministers over too many years to mention.
At a time when there has been such huge pressure on the public finances, it is tremendously welcome that the Government are stepping forward with £2.5 billion to boost the steel industry, along with the important measures relating to those with expertise in the industry, which is a complicated sector. It is therefore very welcome that the Government’s efforts in these areas are being led by those with such expertise in the sector.
Mr Perkins
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who clearly speaks with great knowledge on these subjects. He makes an important point, once again raising the importance of this whole area of legislation to the defence industry and to sovereign capability. The reality is that our defence industry is crucial economically, for jobs and for our national protection, but also for exports. We should absolutely welcome those British manufacturers making things here and selling them across the world. If we inadvertently cause them to be less competitive, we will rue the day, so we need to tread carefully. But his point about ore and those amendments is well made.
I will sit down now, but I tell the Government that they have my absolute support on this approach to the nationalisation of British Steel, and I ask the Minister to respond to the points I have made.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Yesterday we discussed amendments in which we sought to rein in some of the unfettered powers that the Secretary of State is taking for himself in this legislation. Today’s amendments are about trying to rein in the unfettered liability and financial risk that this legislation puts on the taxpayer.
For example, amendment 20 would allow the Secretary of State to provide financial assistance if the National Audit Office has concluded that it would secure value for money for taxpayers. The amendment is obviously about making it clear that these powers are not a blank cheque, that they must be constrained, justified and used only when strictly necessary. We cannot have industrial improvisation when the British taxpayer is being asked to pick up the bill. It is not fair that hard-working taxpayers should be forced to pay for a potential failure of Ministers who think they are able to defy the realities of this market.
Amendment 22 would cap the amount of financial assistance that could be provided to a steel undertaking to £1 million per worker over a five-year period. It would also fix the employee count at the point that support begins, with “employee” being defined by section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The amendment would ensure that financial assistance is targeted, proportionate and provides value for money. If the Government believe in this intervention, as they clearly do, they should be willing to set limits on it, because without such a cap we are simply asking taxpayers to sign up to an unlimited liability.
Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill
Judith Cummins ExcerptsMonday 8th June 2026
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 View all Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 8 June 2026 - (8 Jun 2026)
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Judith Cummins)
It has been drawn to my attention by the Tellers that the numbers were incorrectly reported for the Division on the Question that amendment 12 be made. The correct numbers were 81 for the Ayes and 266 for the Noes. I will direct that the numbers be corrected in the Journal.
The occupant of the Chair left the Chair (Programme Order, 21 May).
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again tomorrow.
Humble Address: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
Judith Cummins Excerpts(2 months ago)
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The Minister for Trade (Chris Bryant)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the Government’s return to the Humble Address on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. I will speak briefly, because I am conscious of the time.
I have today laid before the House documents that the Government have identified that the House requested in its 24 February 2026 Humble Address, covering the creation of the role of special representative for trade and investment in 2001, the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and the advice of officials and Ministers.s This has not been straightforward. Departments have changed in the intervening years and most documentation was then paper-based. In addition, we have had to be careful about not compromising the police investigation. I am glad to say that we have published 11 documents today, including: the formal appointment proposal, evidence that Ministers were content with the proposal, internal communications, and media and press briefings. The documents speak for themselves, and all hon. Members can read them as they are available in the Vote Office.
I want to assure the House that we have proceeded on the basis of maximum transparency and have only redacted material that bears no relevance to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, such as travel proposals for other members of the royal family or content that would otherwise prejudice international relations. I reiterate that the Government are fully co-operating with Thames Valley police in their investigation into potential misconduct in public office. I commend this statement to the House.
Chris Bryant
I hear the right hon. Member’s chuntering, in his regular application process to be made a trade envoy. I am still considering his proposal.
Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill
Judith Cummins ExcerptsThursday 21st May 2026
(2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 View all Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
The reasoned amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition has been selected.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. A lot of Members with a direct constituency interest rightly want to put their remarks on the record. There will be an immediate six-minute time limit for Back-Bench speeches, but we will very swiftly move to three minutes to enable as many Members as possible to speak on this important topic. I call the shadow Minister.
Andrew Griffith
I am afraid that the hon. Member ought to look again at the calendar, because I was not only not in Government but not in this House—I was getting on in business trying to help grow the British economy. When the same issue arose in Port Talbot, it was the previous Government—indeed, my right hon. Friend who is now the Leader of the Opposition—who took action and were willing to back the private sector owner to secure the future of steelmaking in Wales. That was what we did in Government.
We are talking about the issue of tariffs because it is intrinsically related to the Government and the taxpayer taking ownership of one participant in a complex industry supply chain. I know that on the Government Benches, some of the truths that we share today may not be immediately popular, but past Governments failed because they were happy to do what was popular in the moment, without looking at the long-term consequences. The truth is that we should not be nationalising British Steel, and certainly not with the Bill in this form—my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East made the point about the sweeping nature of the clauses, whatever we think about the Secretary of State’s intentions.
We have demonstrated in the past, and we will again, that there are other options, such as partnering with the private sector and negotiating a better deal. The Conservatives would fix the cause, not the symptoms; we would save steelmaking in this country not through state quick fixes, but by fixing the state itself. We would not pit industries against each other, as Labour is now doing, and we would not sit idly by for a rerun of the 1970s horror show that Labour made Britain sit through the last time around.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With a six-minute time limit, I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.
Backing Business to Create Economic Growth
Judith Cummins Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
I welcome the King’s Speech last week. In a volatile world, the question of domestic economic resilience is paramount. Whether it is the conflict in the middle east driving energy price instability, supply chain disruption or a rise in global uncertainty, Britain cannot afford inaction or simply to hope that global shocks will be contained or pass us by. We need an active concordat between Government, business and communities to strengthen our resilience and ensure our prosperity.
The King’s Speech set out an agenda focused on growth, investment, infrastructure, innovation and economic security. Crucially, it recognised that growth must exist not just in Whitehall spreadsheets or the boardrooms of financial institutions in the City; it must be felt in communities like Coatbridge and Bellshill. For decades, businesses—particularly small and medium-sized ones—have felt that the Government work around them rather than with them, so one of the most important measures announced in the King’s Speech was the small business protections Bill on late payments.
For too long, businesses have been pushed to the brink because they completed work and paid wages and suppliers, but waited months to be paid themselves. According to the Small Business Commissioner, late payments cost the UK economy £11 billion annually, with small business owners spending around 86 hours each year chasing unpaid invoices. That is time that is not spent innovating, hiring, exporting or growing. The proposed reforms include stronger powers for the Small Business Commissioner, mandatory interest on late payments and maximum payment terms, and they all represent a positive step.
I also welcome the regulating for growth Bill and the plans being put in place to place a greater emphasis on innovation. That is particularly important for emerging sectors like AI, clean energy, advanced manufacturing and defence technologies. I certainly hope that the Government look to prioritise some of the R&D on clinical research for motor neurone disease—an issue that is very close to my heart.
Innovation matters greatly for post-industrial communities in North Lanarkshire, Scotland’s fastest-growing economy. We are already seeing there the potential of advanced industry and digital infrastructure, with Scotland’s first AI growth zone and companies like Cairnhill Structures in my constituency, which is rebuilding bridges in Ukraine that have been destroyed by Russian forces.
I welcome the support for clean energy investment and for securing domestic steel production, which reflects an understanding that modern economies cannot grow on weak foundations. Recent global events have exposed the dangers of over-reliance on volatile international energy markets, so expanding home-grown clean energy and supporting a new generation of nuclear power is not just sound environmental policy but sound economic security policy. Certainly in Scotland, the SNP should end its decades-long dogmatic opposition to new nuclear.
Growth is strongest and most sustainable when working people are secure, skilled and fairly paid. We have made great progress through the Employment Rights Act and the uplifts to the national and living wages, but we must go further, particularly on apprenticeships. It is a national scandal that apprenticeship starts for advanced manufacturing dropped by 40% under the previous Tory Government and by 30% in Scotland under the SNP. We have to redouble our efforts to end the erosion we have seen under Opposition parties, but we also have a moral obligation to support the 1 million young people who are not in education, training or work to reach their potential. That will be a critical act for transforming our economy.
This King’s Speech recognises that economic security, national resilience and living standards are deeply intertwined. It recognises that Governments have a responsibility not merely to observe the economy but to help to shape the conditions for growth, innovation and long-term prosperity. In a world that is becoming more uncertain by the day, that approach is not ideological—it is necessary.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
The point that the hon. Gentleman makes assumes that investing in green technology and social housing will not give a decent return, but the evidence is to the contrary, so I think that he is wrong in his premise.
Workers’ money should be invested in things such as green technology and social housing because they are stable, reliable sectors that build a better future for the very people whose contributions fund them. I know that Ministers are looking to the AI revolution as another way to grow our economy. There is little doubt that AI is a transformational technology that will bring with it many benefits to our society, but in order to fully realise those benefits, it is important to put in place safeguards to ensure that the technologies are developed and deployed appropriately and in the interests of society as a whole—rather than simply being a vehicle by which large tech companies make even bigger profits. That is why we need the democratic shaping of technology. We need to work with innovators, workers and unions to steer UK research towards automation that creates or improves jobs.
Without robust regulation, we risk steering society towards an unpredictable and turbulent future that does not work for the public. I have already raised with the Government the prospect of considering some kind of employment levy on companies that replace large-scale workforces with AI, and I hope that they will give that some consideration. That links to my belief that we need to rebalance our entire taxation system. Capital gains could be taxed at the same marginal rate as wages. There are also windfall taxes that could be levied on banks, utilities and other corporations that are making excessive profits. We could also have a wealth tax on those with assets of more than £10 million.
Our economy needs to grow, because all the evidence shows that the more unequal a society is, the higher its risk of becoming dysfunctional. As income differences widen, people are less likely to trust one another, and we see a breakdown in social trust between our communities. Getting the right kind of growth in our economy is therefore essential—not just to make people better off but to create a more equal society that works in the interests of every one of us.