Steel Industry

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I have here a long list of the numerous occasions on which, over the past 10 years, I raised my concern over the emasculation of our steel industry and the fact that, if we did not do something very urgently, we might well lose the ability to produce, with a sovereign capability, virgin steel. That is very important for our national security broadly and in particular for our military power.

I can think of a number of specialist steels that are required, for example, in our deterrent submarines, our attack submarines and elsewhere, that we used to be the world expert at producing. Now, we have to go elsewhere to look for them in a world that is changing and becoming very dangerous. We cannot rely on getting them. Before the Second World War, we put an order in with Czechoslovakia for 40,000 tonnes of steel to be delivered here to help build ships. Of course, along came Hitler and he stopped all that happening, which put us in a very difficult position. We are in a world now where we do not know what will happen. Interestingly, Bismarck always referred to blood and iron—I think that changed to blood and steel—as the most important things for military power within your nation. Therefore, this really concerned me.

At the end of this long list of times I raised my concerns, I asked the previous Government whether they felt there was a strategic need to maintain a steel industry and, if not, how could we ensure our military and industrial resilience. The answer I got really made me feel that they did not think there was such a need, and they would not be able to ensure that resilience. I have to say that I was slightly worried about that.

I congratulate the Government on taking this issue seriously and taking action quickly. In the Cold War, when we worked on how we were going to kill Soviet submarines—we would have been jolly good at it, I hasten to add; I am glad we did not have a war, but we would have been good at it—the slang we used was “fastest with the mostest”. In other words, when you got a sniff of a submarine, you moved really quickly—the Government moved really quickly when they saw that something needed to be done—and put every effort, everything you had, into killing that submarine, which you needed to do. There are things that need to be done on this issue, and I am not sure that all of them are being done. I have a concern about the cost of energy, but all these things need to be looked at.

Noble Lords would be very sad if I did not mention ships, which, of course, are made of steel, and we have too few of them. There are plans that would involve using about 90,000 tonnes of steel—it is not very much, really, compared with some areas, but a lot of it is specialist steel—but those plans have not been turned into orders. We need to realise how important steel is for our maritime capability and ensure that those orders go in.

Finally, I say “flag hoist Bravo Zulu” to the Government, which means well done, because this is a good thing to do. I am glad we have come in to do this. It makes the nation realise that it is important, and the steel industry will realise that it is important, which it is. As my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe said, there is going to be a huge demand for steel more broadly.