Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Lord Frost Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his promotion and thank him for his very clear opening statement. The problem we have today is that we are looking at a Bill that is important in its own right but is only one part of a much bigger problem: can we sustain a steel industry at all in this country and, if so, how? I am not quite such a fan of the Government’s March steel strategy as the Minister is. The problem is that what one thinks of this Bill really depends on what one thinks of this broader strategy and how viable it is.

I sympathise with the Government’s difficulties, even though they are in part self-generated, although not wholly. Even somebody as economically liberal as me recognises that we are hardly operating in a free market environment in this area and that some sort of government steering hand is needed. We all have an interest in maintaining a viable steel industry in Britain, after all. It is the design that is crucial.

I want to set out three contextual problems before talking about how we might find a way forward. The first problem has been alluded to before: the fact that there is no genuine market in steel globally. We know about the huge amount of structural overcapacity worldwide, the Chinese subsidies and the reaction—the wave of tariffs, quotas, anti-dumping measures and so on that has spread across the industrialised world. There is no sign that that is going to change any time soon. In that context I understand the Government resorting to tariffs. I certainly do not like them, but it is unreasonable to exclude them as a weapon. They could be better targeted on particular kinds of steel, stronger rules of origin and perhaps bigger TRQs for reliable suppliers. Maybe the Minister can say whether the Government have considered this or might consider it in the future as a way of reducing the downstream effect on our own producers.

The second problem is the need for resilience and the national security issues that go with that. That means maintaining a necessary sovereign capacity, as other noble Lords have said. The question is, what does that sovereign capacity actually mean? The UK currently consumes about 12 million tonnes of steel a year. It is going up slightly. Domestic production is about 30% of that and the Government say they want it to go up to 50%. It is never going to be 100%. Sovereign capacity does not mean producing everything you consume; it is about defining the capabilities you cannot afford to lose and the supply chains you cannot afford to depend on. Others will have different views, but my assessment is that the main capabilities we should be focusing on are: the defence-grade plate, forgings and specialist alloys that are broadly made in Sheffield, and the Government are committing to that; stockpiling and reliable contracts for the upstream supply chains; and rail and critical infrastructure products currently made at Scunthorpe but unprofitably.

The first of those three categories is largely state guided and in part state owned. As for the second, stockpiling, the Government have said nothing at all about this. On the third, Scunthorpe, the Government have not really been clear about the national security or resilience case for keeping Scunthorpe going. The Minister mentioned that it was about maintaining the ability to produce steel from scratch from raw iron, but an EAF plant with a DRI plant can do that as well, and that may well be the direction of travel. It is not in some particular resilience in the upstream supply chain either. After all, we no longer make coking coal in the UK, so we have to import that anyway to keep Scunthorpe going. As far as I can see, the only real case is transitional: to keep the UK as a main supplier to the rail industry while the new electric arc furnace facilities are built at Scunthorpe. I do not know whether this is the case or what mix of these things is the Government’s thinking on Scunthorpe. Perhaps the Minister can give us a bit more detail on that.

The third problem is this. If we are envisaging a modernised steel industry of some kind in this country and the capacity of specific types for specific purposes, can it be done profitably over the long term? Is it viable? I think our answer to that is yes. We can see it done in the US in the mini-mill industry and elsewhere—Turkey, for example, has a profitable steel industry based on EAF plants. Maybe this points to a UK model that is something like specialist capability for defence in Sheffield, two or three EAF clusters, perhaps including Scunthorpe, and this question of a DRI plant, which is touched on in the Government’s strategy but not brought to a conclusion.

Perhaps we could all agree to this as a viable destination. The problem is, how do we get there? As a destination, it depends on a cost and business environment that currently does not exist. Electricity is super expensive and getting more so. The business environment is poor and getting worse. As a transition, it involves somehow encouraging investment into this poor business environment, or else the Government coming up with the money themselves. This is why we have the problem that this Bill encapsulates. We are heading for a destination, however desirable it may be, that is probably unviable in current conditions without massive government help. This is the problem with rushing to nationalise Scunthorpe without thinking it through properly.

So where does that leave us? In the circumstances, there is clearly a case for the temporary nationalisation of Scunthorpe, on certain conditions. Temporary public ownership may be justified—and we wait to hear from the Minister on this—because closure might remove the UK’s primary iron capability overnight, with no clear succession plan. The problem is, as we know, that nationalisation always sets up terrible perverse incentives and poor management, which is why temporariness is really important. There must be a way out and a viable end point. It is reasonable to ask for something clearer on those conditions if we are going to proceed satisfactorily, and I give notice that I will probably put down some amendments to that effect.

We need three things. First, we need a clear exit strategy for Scunthorpe: the blast furnace run-out date if there is one, an EAF commissioning date if there is one and a target for return to the private sector. Without that, Scunthorpe risks becoming British Leyland—a permanent loss-making ward of the state where all the incentives are just to put in more money and hope that things turn out better, impossible to close but impossible to fix either.

The second condition—unfortunately, this is far from being fulfilled—is electricity and energy prices and a business environment that support a viable industry. We know the problem with electricity prices. It has been said that the British industrial competitiveness scheme exists and will hold down those prices, but that itself is only cross-subsidy. We are supposed to believe, and the Secretary of State for Energy has said, that our great net-zero project is going to bring prices down in the future, so why do we need the cross-subsidy if that is really the case? There is a real problem here with the strategy.

It is not just me saying that; plenty of people are. Dieter Helm, who is a pretty neutral commentator on this subject and has certainly supported net zero in the past, wrote on 3 June that the industrial consequences of the Government’s energy policy

“have been dire. High electricity prices have contributed to the closure of Grangemouth … the Exxon refinery in Scotland, one of the Hull refineries, the closure of most of the steel industry, the closure of the fertiliser and fibreglass industries, and severe problems for pottery and for glass-making. Car manufacturing is back to the 1950s’ levels. There is devastation amongst the SMEs … unfunded welfare spending has increased the cost of capital … Energy policy has reduced economic growth, not increased it”.

That is the problem. We are building a steel industry—we hope—in that environment but it is not clear to me how it is going to survive in those circumstances.

The third thing we need is a proper strategy for the industry as a whole, not just for Scunthorpe but something broader. What is the end point? Is there going to be a DRI plant or not? Do the Government recognise the need for the stockpiling of hard-to-source EAF kit and scrap? Do they recognise the need for strategic stockpiles of defence plate billets, HBI and so on?

The problem we have, to return to where we started, is that the March strategy covers only about half the ground. It commits on Port Talbot funding, on expanding Forgemasters and on one or two other things, but it is unclear on Scunthorpe—the subject before us today—non-committal on DRIs and silent on stockpiling. It says little or nothing about whether the future industry can be expanded further if we need to upgrade our defence effort. Above all, it does not tell us what the hierarchy of objectives is. What is the Government’s choice framework? When national security clashes with profitability, what is most important? When employment clashes with modernisation, do we protect jobs or do we fund the transition? When net zero clashes with the industrial base, do we change the plans or continue the charge of the Light Brigade to industrial suicide? That needs to be clear if it is a strategy. I would like to think the March strategy was interim but I do not know. Perhaps the Minister could say whether any thinking has been done on this broader approach and whether a broader strategy is needed.

Britain is not going to get back to a world of free trade in steel—that is not going to appear any time soon—but it can have a steel industry that is smaller, smarter, sovereign in the things that matter and capable of paying its own way. The problem is that putting so much of this in the hands of a Government relies on a Government who are capable of strategising for industries and running them, but history suggests that Governments are not good at those things. We are right to be sceptical about the approach and to ask for more information. Perhaps in winding up the Minister could start to give us some of that.