British Steel

Lord Fox Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to return to the subject of Scunthorpe and British Steel. I start by saying once again, as I said on the last occasion, that our thoughts today must be with the steel-workers, their families, the suppliers and the communities whose future hangs in the balance in what is a very difficult and challenging situation.

We welcome the news that British Steel’s redundancy plans have been halted. This will be a relief to the workers and their families who have endured months of uncertainty because, when one looks at the background to this whole situation, one sees that the Government have just not had any plan at all for British Steel. As was said when we met on Saturday 12 April, during the Recess, this situation should never have been allowed to reach this point. The closure of the Stellantis plant in Luton—as long ago as 29 November last year—was a stark warning, yet still the Government failed to act in time. So, although today’s Statement brings some short-term reassurance, it is by no means a resolution. This is only the beginning. I say to the Minister that we now need urgent clarity. We need to understand how the Government plan to secure the future of the British steel industry.

That includes a clear strategy to boost domestic steel production, a credible plan to attract and sustain private sector investment, and an assurance that the broad powers that the Government have taken will genuinely be temporary. Although we are told that these powers will not be held

“for a minute more than is necessary”,—[Official Report, Commons, 12/4/25; col. 843.]

the Government’s recent approach with delegated powers and Henry VIII clauses is precisely why this House called for a sunset clause. Parliament was just not given sufficient time to scrutinise the Bill properly, and the Government should have taken that opportunity to come back to Parliament with improved proposals that had not been rushed through. Sadly, that proposal was rejected. We now have a commitment that the Secretary of State will provide updates every four weeks, and we are going to have a debate in this House, in September or October, on the future of British steel. This is very much what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and many of us called for on the last occasion, but the House really now needs to hear a commitment from the Minister that this will be a substantive debate. On the last occasion, the Minister said:

“I can confirm that my noble friend the Chief Whip will facilitate a fuller debate on the Floor of the House on the operation of what will then be the Act”.—[Official Report, 12/4/25; col. 534.]


I do not know whether the Minister has had an opportunity of talking to her colleague, but we really would like some further detail, because this House must be given the opportunity to scrutinise and influence the direction of policy in a substantive debate. Can we please have that assurance?

We must of course also address the cost to the taxpayer. Have the Government provided any form of estimated assessment of the public cost so far? Looking ahead, where will the ongoing costs land, especially if the government intervention continues or escalates? On that point, the Business Secretary has now said repeatedly that nationalisation is likely. Can the Minister confirm that any move towards nationalisation will not be rushed through at the last minute via emergency legislation? If it is indeed the Government’s intention to nationalise, they should make that clear today and bring forward legislation without delay. This House must be given the opportunity properly to debate and scrutinise such a significant move. What happened during the Recess is not acceptable and should not be repeated, because it was an appalling way for Ministers to treat Parliament. The Government should act in a timely way to prevent unnecessary uncertainty and strain on our steel sector workers and their families.

Then to the matter of the Government’s long-promised steel strategy: we are told that this will be laid before us very soon. Can the Minister give us an idea of what it will contain? Specifically, will the Government consider, or reconsider, opening coking coal mines in the UK? On the last occasion we debated this, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, asked the Minister:

“Will the Government reconsider the decision not to support the Cumbrian mine, which can produce high quality coking coal?”.—[Official Report, 12/4/25; col. 517.]


There was no indication of an answer to her noble friend’s question in that debate, and we would love to hear an answer from the Minister today. I realise that there is a sulphur problem, but it is long standing and can be overcome. Can we please reconsider opening coking coal mines in the UK? It is patently absurd to reject domestic coking coal on environmental grounds, only to import it from thousands of miles away at a greater environmental and financial cost.

Secondly, the Government have committed £2.5 billion in investment in steel. Will the Minister clarify for what this funding is intended? Is it going to cover running costs? If not, who will? Are we expecting the taxpayer to carry that burden as well?

Finally, I have a broader question. Will the Government now reconsider elements of their environmental policy and regulatory framework that have at times actively harmed UK industry? Of course we must stay committed to our environmental obligations, but surely that must be balanced with industrial viability, energy, security and economic growth. Can the Minister confirm whether such a review is under active consideration?

The British steel industry is a strategic national asset. It surely deserves better than piecemeal interventions and opaque announcements. I ask again: can we please be provided with the clarity, detail and honesty that this House, the other place and the thousands of workers and communities relying on us rightly demand now?

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, when we debated the fate of British Steel on 12 April, the sense of urgency from the Government was palpable. As subsequent events played out, that sense of urgency was fully justified. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I would say it was timely legislation that Parliament moved effectively to deliver. That is why the contents of this Statement—as far as it goes—which sets out how both blast furnaces have been secured and the redundancy process has been ended, are good news. Everyone involved should be congratulated on pulling together and working so effectively to do that.

However, the haste of the legislation and the need for quick action leave a lot of open questions. I will ask a few more nitty-gritty questions. First, what about Port Talbot? I cannot help thinking the Welsh will be looking eastward and wondering where they fit into this programme. Have the Government had discussions with Tata Steel? How do the Government see the whole picture of steel in the United Kingdom, and how will they set that picture out to your Lordships?

Secondly, what is Jingye’s current status, in respect of British Steel but also the other steel-related businesses that it holds in the UK? Given the fractious nature of the past 10 days, how are the Government relating tousb the Chinese business that it still owns the site? What is the point of contact? Is it operational or departmental? Is it governmental, or is there no contact at all between Jingye and the people now running the plant? Can the Minister confirm whether there have been government-to-government discussions about this between the UK and the People’s Republic of China?

Thirdly, following some discussion during the take-note debate last week, I wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hermer, who was present on the Front Bench at the time, asking them to clarify the basis of international law that the Government are using, at WTO, EU and domestic legislative levels, to justify subsidising the operational functions of a business that they do not own? Perhaps the Minister could alert her officials to the existence of that letter and chivvy along the response.

In the Statement, in answer to the rhetorical question “What next?”, the Secretary of State said that

“All options are on the table”.


It would help your Lordships’ House if the Minister could explain what is meant by “all options”. More than this, I suggest that, to properly decide what should happen, the Government should have a very clear-eyed sense of their industrial strategy. We should not delude ourselves: the UK steel industry has been in a tough place for a very long time, and Saturday 12 April did not change that. For UK steel to flourish, it needs to be within an industrial strategy and within a defence industrial strategy. We are waiting for these, and the need for these anchoring strategies is ever more present. So, I ask the Minister: when will the industrial strategy be published?

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised the Stellantis closure, which was announced on 29 November. This was surprising, because I would ask him: who was in government at the time that announcement was made? However, he said that steel is fundamental to Britain’s industrial strength, and we agree with that.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

The noble Lord has got the dates wrong.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

In that case, I withdraw the point.

To make the statement true, the industrial strategy should explain how it is going to build the steel industry, what steels are needed and what processes can deliver them. I have an outstanding question on the different sorts of steels that can be delivered by blast furnace and electric arc furnace; that question still has not been answered. It is my contention that many of the specialist steels we require, particularly for our defence industry, cannot be produced via current electric arc technology. I would like an answer to that question. It should explain how the demand for UK-made steels will be stimulated and grown, and it should devise an ownership structure that actually fits in with that strategy. At the moment, we are looking at ownership before we look at what we want the industry to do. I suggest that we should be looking at this the other way around.

Finally, unless the Government deal with the high cost of energy—which they did inherit from the Conservative Government—it is hard to see how any of this works. So, can the Minister at least acknowledge the problems faced by the whole manufacturing sector by disproportionately high energy costs, and can the Minister suggest how the Government are going to address that absolutely key issue?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right. Today’s world feels like it is changing from a Monday to a Tuesday. We must not forget that in all of this, we should have that north star—what are those assets that we have within the UK and those industries that we see encouraging all our future growth, and how can we support them? The purpose of the Government’s industrial strategy is to illuminate exactly that: how do we identify those key sectors and what are the facets that we need to intervene in to be able to support the growth? A key aspect of that is energy costs, which is why things such as the supercharger scheme is so important. They need to be targeted at those sectors that we see as really essential to the UK.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I ask the Minister to reaffirm that the steel strategy is not mutually exclusive of the net-zero strategy but central to it going forward. There is an unfortunate tendency to think you can have one and not the other. Can the Minister confirm that the aim is to deliver one through the other?

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I confirm exactly that: energy is going to be such an important growth driver across all our sectors, and a key one that we are talking about today is the steel strategy. For us to grow a sustainable and powerful industry within the UK, we need a sustainable and powerful source of energy that is generated here and that we can rely on. That is why the two go hand in hand.