Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Luke Myer Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Pamela Nash]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very helpful intervention.

For the reasons I have set out, we are getting to the point where we are losing experienced staff and equipment is in danger of going out of date. Time is running out very quickly for Dalzell. If it is left to close up shop, we will not be able simply to go back later and restart it. I have no intention of being the Member of Parliament who sees the closure of the last steelworks in Scotland, and I know the Minister has no intention of allowing that to happen on his watch.

Steel is Motherwell’s heritage and is also a key part of its progress. It is our threads in the fabric of the future of our country. I want my constituents once again to look at planes, wind turbines and bridges and be excited to know that the steel encasing them came from Motherwell.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I have seen in our all-party parliamentary group on steel and metals-related industries how my hon. Friend is such a tenacious and tireless champion for her part of the world and the steelworkers in it. She mentioned defence earlier in her speech. Does she agree with me that we really need the Government to bring forward the defence investment plan, that its focus really needs to be on making sure that steel jobs benefit across the UK, including in Scotland and in Teesside, and that small and medium-sized enterprises and the entire supply chain benefit as well?

[Pamela Nash]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for the publication of the defence investment plan, but I do not think it is within the scope of this Bill and it is definitely above my pay grade as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Defence Ministers.

Finally, I want to see Dalzell again supporting a vibrant workforce, providing safe, well-paid, high-quality jobs to local people and being able to develop apprentices for the next generation of steel processing in Scotland. I want to see income investment in Motherwell from the reinvigoration of this plant, allowing surrounding businesses to benefit from its success. I reject the attempts of Opposition Members to limit the Bill’s ability to support our industry when it needs it most.

In his closing speech, will the Minister reassure the workers at Dalzell that this Government will support them, possibly with the safety net of this Bill or otherwise, whenever it is necessary? Will he also confirm to the people of Motherwell that Dalzell remains at the heart of this Government’s plans for the UK steel industry?

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[Luke Myer]

The Minister is right in what he says about trade. On amendment 6, however, industry is concerned that phasing out free allowances before the new CBAM is fully tested risks exposing UK industry to carbon leakage. Does he agree that the new CBAM must be robustly designed and implemented to genuinely level the playing field for industry?

[Chris McDonald]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for steel and metals-related industries. The Treasury is responsible for the carbon border adjustment mechanism and is consulting extremely carefully with the industry on that. I am sure that the Treasury will have heard his remarks and will take them into account.

Amendments 7 to 9 relate primarily to some of the environmental liabilities. The issue also arose in yesterday’s debate, where there were concerns about liabilities—the phrase “unlimited liabilities” might have been used. However, the liabilities are not unlimited. We have a reasonably good sense of what the liabilities are. We would expect the valuer to take those liabilities into account—that is quite right—but we have extensive experience with the remediation of similar sites elsewhere in the country.

The Committee has heard about the Ravenscraig site, but the Teesside site is a more recent example. The remediation of the Teesside site—the amount of public money spent on that—is well documented. The site in Scunthorpe is of a similar age, has had similar industrial activity, and is of a similar size. Ultimately, however, the Government are seeking to avoid the crystallisation of environmental liabilities by ensuring the continued operation of steel on the site. It is the responsibility of the valuer to take that into account when determining the valuation of the company. For that reason, the Government do not consider it necessary to support amendments 7 to 9.

Amendments 10 and 11 propose increasing the frequency of reporting on financial assistance to every three months. Again, it is the Government’s view that the current framework is proportionate in terms of the balance between transparency and delivery. We are incredibly concerned to ensure that we do not impose unnecessary administrative burdens. Inevitably, the management of a business acquired through the Bill and the civil servants in my Department would have to deal with the reasons for the business’s acquisition. Although we of course feel that reporting, transparency and accountability to this House are important, we are trying to strike a balance.

I know that amendment 20 is particularly important to the Opposition, so I will spend a bit of time on it. We are all incredibly concerned about value for money, but we have existing arrangements across Government to deal with that. It is already the case that Departments must secure value for money under the Treasury’s managing public money framework. It is also our view that the drafting of the amendment does not quite meet the requirement as described: that the National Audit Office would check the assistance prior to being approved. We think that putting this requirement in statute would unnecessarily reduce the Government’s ability to act quickly where support is needed. We have heard from many contributions today that on the presumption that the legislation will be required, the Government must be able to move quickly.

We have seen the need for acting quickly before. Harking back to a previous example of a failed steel business, I recall that we had only a matter of days within which to save the Teesside business due to a shortage of coal. Of course, we all remember that it was necessary to come back to Parliament at incredibly short notice to pass the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025, again because there was a shortage of coal, with the potential for those coal shipments to be diverted. It is therefore incredibly important that the Secretary of State is able to act quickly when required.

A couple of amendments have been proposed by Plaid Cymru Members—although they are not present, I think it is still responsible to address them. One amendment is about restricting the National Wealth Fund, with which I completely disagree. The National Wealth Fund is one of Government’s primary instruments for assessing potential investment opportunities and investing in industry. In fact, there is provision through the Government’s £2.5 billion steel fund for the National Wealth Fund to offer support to steel companies, as set out in the steel strategy. We intend to use whatever funding instruments are available to Government, not to restrict them.

[Chris McDonald]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the incident last Wednesday at the Port Talbot site. Pickle lines are notoriously susceptible to these sorts of incidents because of the high-temperature hydrochloric acid used to treat the steels. I would imagine that once such a blaze has taken hold, the effects can be absolutely devastating. I want to echo her commendation of the emergency services and the workforce, who are, in this situation, the first responders, protecting life and valuable industrial plants. I was incredibly relieved to hear shortly after the incident that every single member of staff was accounted for. It is a credit to Tata Steel and its management processes.

I am, however, concerned about our loss of productive capacity there as a result of this incident. As my hon. Friend rightly points out, we are fortunate in having another pickle line available in Llanwern, and I understand that as of last Friday Tata Steel is looking at restarting that plant and moving the work there—perhaps it has already restarted—but the hot mill was down for a time in Port Talbot. This really emphasises where we have points of vulnerability in our industrial capacity, not only in steel but more broadly. We are determined to address those points through this Bill, our steel strategy and our wider industrial strategy. I thank her for raising that matter.

[Luke Myer]

I thank the Minister for giving way again; he is being very generous. He has made a couple of references to the Teesside site, both to the crash closure in 2015 and to the remediation of the land. With that land having now been remediated, immense steel structures are being built there as part of the Government’s carbon capture programme. It was great to be on site recently and to see the progress of that site. The project is using 50% UK steel; of course, Liberty Steel in Hartlepool has benefited from that. Does the Minister agree that procurement measures like contracts for difference need to be adjusted to ensure that we are using domestic steel in as much of our major infrastructure projects as possible?

[Chris McDonald]

I agree that procurement has an important role to play here. I am sure that my hon. Friend will have welcomed recent changes in guidance by the Cabinet Office to ensure that British steel producers are well placed to win these orders, as well as in the areas of renewable energy, where the Government are awarding significant contracts, and nuclear power, where we are again endeavouring to ensure that British companies are well placed to win those contracts.

I turn to amendment 22 and new clauses 4 and 12, which would impose statutory caps on compensation and financial assistance. I have already addressed compensation, and financial assistance is somewhat similar in that applying a cap on the basis of the number of employees, or indeed a fixed cap of any kind, would ultimately restrain the Government’s ability to respond effectively to circumstances as they evolve.

I believe that could fundamentally undermine the purpose of the Bill, which is for the Government, with the will of Parliament, to be ready to respond to circumstances such that we are not required to fly back from wherever we are in the world at incredibly short notice, and prolong uncertainty among the workforce and suppliers. We do not want to create any legal uncertainty, uncertainty in the supply chain or commercial uncertainty. That is why it is important to have this level of flexibility.

The Bill has proportionate and robust transparency and accountability mechanisms for the provision of financial assistance. For instance, clause 59 requires the Secretary of State to report to Parliament at 12-monthly intervals, and funding will be subject to the established framework for managing public money, including through Treasury approval processes.

New clause 6 would place on the Secretary of State a requirement to put forward a proposal to Parliament about providing financial assistance if a Select Committee were to make recommendations on that. Again, that is not realistic. Given that financial support would be required immediately following a transfer, there would not be time for that level of parliamentary scrutiny. Important though scrutiny is—I certainly welcome the investigation into steel currently being carried out by the Public Accounts Committee—we have to be realistic about the point at which it is possible to apply scrutiny.

New clause 7 would require impact assessments to be published before exercising the Bill’s provisions. Again, the issue is essentially about pace among other things. We believe that impact assessments are crucial to show the impact of Government intervention, and the Government are committed to operating in line with our better regulation framework requirements. We do not want to introduce any further legal uncertainty, so we reject the new clause.

A number of colleagues mentioned new clause 9, so it is important to address some of the issues raised around that. Fundamentally, the new clause would not be at all helpful; I will give an example as to why. There is an assumption in the new clause that if the Government were to nationalise a business under the Bill, the best approach would be to treat it like a hot potato and immediately throw it away. We have seen the impact of that.

We heard yesterday about the nationalisation—briefly—of British Steel by the previous Conservative Government: they spent £750,000, made no investment in the business and immediately sold it on to a company called Greybull Capital, whose track record was failure at Monarch airlines, failure at Comet electrical stores and failure at Rileys snooker halls. If you cannot run a snooker hall, you definitely cannot run a steel company.

This is where the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) and I have some points of agreement: there is more than one way to bring investment into a business other than selling it to an overseas investor. We could have debt and equity finance, and the Conservative party used to be keen on mass public ownership via a listing on the London Stock Exchange. There are many different ways in which we can bring private sector investment into a business and resolve issues around ownership.

Of course, it is intolerable to work in a business that is constantly up for sale—I have been in that position myself—as businesses do not perform in that position. A decision to sell a business is a decision made at a point in time, not an ongoing process. The Government therefore reject that new clause.

Given that I have detained the Committee considerably over the last couple of days, I have no wish to do so any further. I hope that, having responded as fully as I can to the amendments and new clauses, the Members who tabled them might feel sufficiently reassured not to press them and therefore save the House their consideration. I fully and sincerely thank everyone for their incredible participation in the debate, for the marvellous speeches that we have heard today, and for their strong interest in the steel industry that I have worked in and which I continue to champion in this House.

Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Luke Myer Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 8th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Ann Davies]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Some £500 million has been ringfenced for Port Talbot; that money is rapidly gone, with no benefit to the local community, but that is another issue that I will not talk about now.

We want an end to the double standard. Welsh steel must be given the same guarantees as English or Scottish steel. What we want is equality for all the sites across the UK; we want the same security and the same commitment to preventing closures and safeguarding jobs.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I am delighted to welcome the Bill, and will speak to a couple of the new clauses and amendments. I declare my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on steel and metals-related industries, through which it is a pleasure to work cross-party in the interests of the industry.

Just outside Middlesbrough, wedged between the gas pipes and the railway, is an old path. Someone walking there 200 years ago would have found sailors trudging through salt marsh hamlets, and 100 years ago they would have found steelworkers—hundreds of them—walking home on the tired commute. The cinders underfoot gave the path its name: “the black path.”

If someone walks that path today, they will see the remnants of a bygone age for Teesside iron and steel. They will see a former railway station, now disused, which was used for industry. They will see a lost ironworkers’ village and the red wild flowers that thrive on former slag pile soil. And, of course, they will arrive at one of the largest brownfield sites in Europe: the former Redcar steelworks, which once stood as a great shadow on our skyline, the heart of the region, pumping out steel across the world.

The phrase on Teesside goes, “We built the world.” Everything from the Sydney harbour bridge to the Churchill War Rooms were made with Teesside steel. It can never be forgotten that, in 2015, the then Conservative Government’s laissez-faire approach to Chinese steel dumping denied us the intervention that we needed on Teesside. The closure of Redcar steelworks tore a hole through our region and cost thousands of jobs. I pay tribute to my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), who at that point was a newly elected MP and fought tirelessly for the workers of Teesside, but we can never allow a situation like that to happen again.

We cannot change the past, but steel is not our past, as the workers at British Steel Special Profiles at Skinningrove in my constituency will tell us, or the workers at Teesside beam mill at Lackenby, along with the many supply chain SMEs on Teesside. Having run a Teesside steel company for many years, the Minister for Industry knows that landscape well. I commend the decisions that the Government have taken, particularly on British Steel, that have protected and safeguarded jobs in my constituency and my region.

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[Graham Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is giving a powerful speech and showing great expertise. Is he confident, as so many critics of the steel plan were not, that the £2.5 billion that has been found by the Treasury is sufficient to allow the interventions that he so enthusiastically supports? If it is not, is there not a danger that we will not invest in things, but just bleed out public cash on facilities that continue to be uncompetitive and do not get renewed? If we do not put the right resource in, as France and other countries have arguably done, we will be losing out and not winning.

[Luke Myer]

As a Back Bencher, I will always fight for more funding to modernise our steel industry. What I do know is that the current owners of British Steel are not responsible owners. We saw last year the crisis that was created when they failed to provide sufficient supply to keep the blast furnaces running. We cannot allow the current situation to continue if we are to protect our domestic industry. This Bill is about having the powers to nationalise and ensure that the national interest is served. Whether there is sufficient funding is a question on which I will continue to push the Government.

We are not focusing today on clause 58, but the freedom to make the necessary fiscal decisions to support operational stability and competitiveness is fundamental to the sunset clause we are discussing, as well as the potential for ongoing considerations on other critical assets that the Bill might be used for. It would be helpful to hear more about the Government’s intentions on issues like energy and procurement, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) said. We had a positive intervention from the Cabinet Office last year and the ambition to increase domestic steel market share back towards 50% is right, but the test will be in the delivery.

For too long, we have had industrial strategies while approving publicly backed projects that import vast quantities of overseas steel. Taxpayers rightly expect public investment to strengthen British industry and British jobs. Mechanisms like contracts for difference and other subsidy schemes must align much more closely with procurement objectives, so that public money genuinely supports UK supply chains. The forthcoming defence investment plan is a major opportunity to ensure that we are using UK steel across the country in industrial communities to support national security. At the end of the day, economic security is national security. Britain cannot become dangerously dependent on overseas steel for critical infrastructure or defence capability.

While I support the shift to electric arc furnaces and the increased focus on how we use domestic scrap, which is welcome, Britain should seek to retain some primary iron capability. Other countries are investing heavily in technologies like direct reduced iron. We need only look at Luleå in northern Sweden, for example, where an operational hydrogen-powered DRI facility is already producing steel. That has not held the region back in any way. Economically, it has had the opposite effect of attracting inward investment in new industries, from data centres to clean power. I would like to hear a little from the Minister about DRI and whether we will be looking seriously at that, but I do not wish to stray too far out of the scope of the Bill.

The legislation was brought forward in the context of British Steel, but we should not pretend that British Steel is the only critical asset that may ever require Government action. There may be other sites, capabilities and parts of the supply chain where future intervention is needed to protect jobs, sovereign capability and the national interest, so my concern with amendment 12 is that it would make these powers too easy to lose. A future Government may not share the same commitment to active industrial strategy and may not be as willing to renew the tools needed to protect the sector, so we should not remove the extension mechanism now because we may leave workers and industry more exposed later on.

Opposition Members made the point that politicians should not run businesses, although of course the Minister for Industry did run a steel business for many years and did so very effectively. They may mean that politicians from this country should not run businesses. The Bill is before us because of the approach that Jingye has taken. The Chinese steel industry has long benefited from huge state subsidies, and cheap state-directed finance, energy support and overcapacity policies. Beijing did not leave it to the market; it used state power aggressively to expand industrial capacity, which is worth bearing in mind.

I will finish on this point. While the Government cannot say which assets they wish to use these powers for, it is evident that British Steel cannot remain in Chinese hands. I do not know what the long-term ownership structure will look like—perhaps it will be modernised and sold to a new buyer, or perhaps it will be taken into public hands and remain there, with steelworkers having some stake in the company that they built—but I do know this. When a Labour Government intervened to create the nationalised British Steel Corporation in 1967, Teesside enjoyed such high employment and high wages that it was classified as one of the best places to live anywhere in the UK. It brought stability to tens of thousands of families and built the second largest blast furnace in Europe.

In 1979, a very different Government took office with a very different theory of Britain—a small state and a blind faith in the global free market. In just five years, our region had the highest registered unemployment rate anywhere in Great Britain. By the end of Thatcher’s premiership, almost 250,000 jobs in our region had gone. They took a British industrial economy and turned it into a globalised service sector economy.

Today the Thatcherites are back, with a new logo and a new face. They will talk a big game on steel, but we have been here before. It is my belief that only a social democratic Government can truly protect our steel communities and equip them to face the future, because a social democratic Government recognise something that a foreign private owner cannot: the value of protecting sovereign industry, even when the going gets tough.

This issue is about our jobs, but it is also about our security. Will we be left exposed in a volatile world, or will we build for the future again? I hope that this Labour Government have the courage and ambition to do so.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Minister McDonald, I believe you wish to contribute again.

Seasonal Hospitality Businesses in Coastal Areas

Luke Myer Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kate Dearden)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) on securing this important debate on Government support for seasonal hospitality and leisure businesses in coastal areas. I thank all hon. Members for talking about businesses in their communities and constituencies. I could really hear their passion as they championed their local areas and businesses.

The debate is important because the sectors are important. They provide accessible jobs, drive tourism and generate significant economic activity. They support local economies, particularly in coastal and seaside communities, where tourism, hospitality and leisure form the backbone of economic activity. They support wider social objectives, creating vibrant places where people want to visit, work, live and invest.

Creating the economic and social environment that hospitality and leisure businesses need to thrive cuts right across Government. Members have raised so many issues that cut across the responsibilities of many Departments, and I thank them for that. Co-ordinated action from the Department for Businesses and Trade and myself, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Home Office and His Majesty’s Treasury is required to ensure that the great British seaside has a secure and prosperous future.

That is especially important when many coastal communities are entirely dependent on hospitality and leisure businesses to provide the vast majority of employment and opportunity for local people. They prop up the vital local government services that residents rely on, too. These businesses are not simply part of the local economy; they are the local economy.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

Last year, I worked with some of the businesses in my coastal community to develop a local economic growth plan. Would the Minister meet me to discuss that plan and some of the policies that we would like to see?

[Kate Dearden]

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend and his brilliant local businesses. I thank him for his intervention.

I regularly meet local businesses from across the hospitality sector, and I hear at first hand about the pressures that seasonal and coastal operators face. I recognise the importance of hospitality businesses in our coastal communities. I have been delighted to meet many hon. Friends representing coastal towns and cities to understand the challenges that hospitality and leisure businesses in their constituencies and across the UK face.

I recently spent the day visiting Blackpool with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Chris Webb) to meet business owners, workers and residents who have come together to extend their peak season and reduce the structural issues of operating seasonally. Visiting in April came with a breeze, but that was never going to stop the magic of going up Blackpool tower, having delicious fish and chips and talking all things hospitality. I thank my hon. Friend for his hospitality on that day. It was particularly useful to meet those leading Blackpool’s tourism sector who are using hospitality as a launch pad for social mobility, high-quality employment and local regeneration.

It is clear, both in Blackpool and across the UK, that future-proofing our coastal communities is only possible by developing those strong partnerships between public, private and third sector organisations. I have taken the learnings from meetings with colleagues and from contributions to the debate, and I will continue to do so with my colleagues across Government. I assure hon. Members that I will work with them and their communities to continue to deliver for coastal towns and communities.

I thank hon. Members for raising the issue of business rates with me on numerous occasions on behalf of businesses in their constituencies. Members will know that we have introduced permanently lower business rates multipliers for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties. I know that the Conservative party put temporary relief in place, so it is right that we give businesses permanent relief. We did not think that was right, which is why we stepped in and made our announcements. In addition, we have provided support to pubs and live music venues.

Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Luke Myer Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 21st May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

There was absolutely a plan before the election to open arc furnaces in Redcar—that was absolutely case—and to move Scunthorpe operations to Redcar.

I asked the Secretary of State to address the issue of tariffs. There is no better example of the folly of these plans—

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

No, I am going to make some progress on tariffs. A number of hon. Members have raised this very important issue, shedding light on the way that the Government are tilting the playing field on tariffs. Under this Government, we have already seen a flurry of Trump-style tariffs—doubling steel tariffs and halving quotas—that elevate the interests of one firm over the automotive, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and defence sectors. Firms involved in the supply chains of AUKUS and Tempest are now looking at shifting tooling and jobs to other countries, instead of manufacturing components here.

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[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) have made exactly the right point: we need a more thoughtful approach.

I have written to the Secretary of State, as have many of my colleagues, asking that the tariffs are delayed for six months while the Department does more work; that the Government investigate more specialist grades of steel; that within the broader tariff buckets, they look again at the steel alloys used in the defence, aerospace and automotive sectors that are simply not made here today, because there are perhaps unintended consequences of the tariffs; that they be more forensic in their approach; and that they bring forward the measures the Conservatives have talked about on industrial energy costs, which are damaging not just the steel industry but many other industries’ and our basis on which to compete.

There is no point securing what the Secretary of State thinks is in the national interest for one steel manufacturer in a particular location if the foreseeable consequence, unintended or otherwise, is to ship offshore large parts of our high-end automotive manufacturing, engineering and defence industries, so that they are lost forever and conducted in other countries. I have raised that serious point with the Minister, and I ask him to address it.

[Luke Myer]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

I will give way if it is about this particular point.

[Luke Myer]

I am afraid that I want to give the hon. Member another chance to answer the question from my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald), which was not about the prospect of a future EAF on Teesside—a prospect that I support but that the Leader of the Opposition confirmed from the Dispatch Box was not as advanced as the hon. Member claims. My hon. Friend’s question was about the crash closure of the blast furnace at Redcar in 2015, which ripped 3,000 jobs out of our region. What message does the hon. Member have for the people of Redcar, whose Government he was in when that happened?

[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.

UK Steel Strategy

Luke Myer Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

My hon. Friend’s analysis is absolutely correct, and he has been a tireless advocate ever since he joined this place. It is correct to say that we have invested and are investing in steel in Wales, but we are also investing in modernising the economy and infrastructure of Wales. The creation of two AI growth zones sits alongside the work we are doing on steel and other areas of infrastructure in Wales. Again, it demonstrates two Labour Governments working together for the benefit of the people of Wales. It works, and he is part of that, for which I am grateful.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. What a contrast there is between the Government of just over a decade ago, who ripped the heart out of my region, and this Government, who finally have a strategy after many decades. I welcome it, but what is more, so does the industry—I spoke to those in the industry this week, and they strongly welcome the measures, particularly on procurement and trade. This is a Government on the side of British steelworkers.

One of the biggest issues affecting the industry is, of course, energy. I hear what the Secretary of State says about the supercharger, but even with that, there will still be an energy price gap with many of our competitors. What more can we do to ensure that we reduce these gaps for our industry and protect jobs years into the future?

[Peter Kyle]

The workers at Skinningrove have a true advocate in this place in my hon. Friend. I can reassure him that the work we have done on the supercharger will make a tangible difference to the workers and the sustainability of that plant. I can also reassure him that this is a Government who act when we have to. We are in constant touch with the steel industry. We are on its side. We are working with it to create a sustainable industry into the future.

Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill

Luke Myer Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I support the Bill. It is a common-sense adjustment of limits that were set in another economic age, so that powers that Parliament has long judged to be legitimate can carry on being exercised to support our industry. It is not in the interests of working people for arbitrary historical figures to determine whether the Government can act in the national interest today or in the future. No country can sensibly insist that its industries compete in the modern world and at the same time bind its own hands with ceilings fixed years ago when the scale of production, trade and finance were altogether smaller—and indeed when my hon. Friend the Minister was last on the Government Benches, though of course he has not aged a day since then.

Without this Bill, both UK Export Finance and assistance under the Industrial Development Act 1982 would simply run into statutory limits because the law has failed to keep pace with reality. In places like Teesside, we know what happens when the tools of industrial policy are allowed to rust. We have seen world-class steelmaking exposed not because the work lacked value but because the state lacked the capacity or will to act. This Government have shown, including in their response to the challenges facing British Steel, that they will not hesitate to step in when working people’s security is on the line. This Bill is another step to ensure that that ability to act is preserved.

For industries such as steel, which are foundational to our defence, energy, infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, an active state is a necessity. The Bill is not the whole answer, and the steel industry still needs a full steel strategy as well as clarity from the Government about their response to the current global trading environment. However, the Bill is a reasonable change to support the industrial strategy and ensure that assistance already sanctioned by this House in principle does not fail in practice because legal ceilings have been allowed to fossilise. I therefore support the Bill.

There is a clear difference between intervention that entrenches privilege and intervention that enables productive work when private markets alone cannot bear the risk. Anyone who has spent any time at all speaking to our steel manufacturers, who are competing against heavily-backed overseas rivals, understands that distinction.

In that sense, the Bill is simply a maintenance of our existing capacity, updating it to today’s values. It keeps faith with our strategic industries and the communities on which they rely and ensures that the instruments that Parliament has judged necessary are not rendered useless by neglect. It also supports jobs across every region of the country and in doing so preserves Britain’s ability to make, build and export. For those reasons, I support the Bill.

Critical Minerals Strategy

Luke Myer Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that the critical minerals strategy will benefit every nation in the UK, including Northern Ireland. I am particularly keen to learn more about the ionic liquid separation methods of Ionic Technologies, which has been a flagship project for Queen’s University Belfast. I wrote to the relevant Ministers in the devolved Governments before the launch of the strategy, and I am keen to continue working with them on it.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s critical minerals strategy, but I wish the great British export of polyhalite had been included and given the recognition that it deserves as a critical mineral. As Teesside is a region with great critical mineral strength, how will the strategy benefit it and the wider supply chain?

[Chris McDonald]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the polyhalite mines. There is the Whitby mine, of course, and I went down the Boulby mine myself some years ago. They are quite remarkable and a great natural mineral strength for the UK. Two projects—Tees Valley Lithium and Green Lithium—are considering sites in the Teesside area, and we hope that they will be operational soon. They are certainly positioning Teesside to continue in its strength as a processing centre for critical minerals in the UK.

Hydrogen Supply Chains

Luke Myer Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) on opening it so well.

The Teesside region already produces much of the UK’s hydrogen, in an economy built on the legacy of ICI, and it continues today with BOC’s Teesside hydrogen carbon capture, usage and storage project. We have the pipelines, the port and the skills, and now the prospect of a new £4 billion net zero Teesside CCUS project linked to the Endurance saline aquifer beneath the North sea. With projects across our industrial cluster, we are well equipped to deliver perhaps a quarter of the Government’s 2030 target.

The potential is huge, representing thousands of construction jobs in the short term, with long-term roles in energy, transport and manufacturing, and the chance to give our young people skilled work close to home. This is about livelihoods and whether young people in Middlesbrough, Redcar, Cleveland, Stockton—my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) is in his place—Hartlepool and Darlington can find skilled, unionised work in the industries of the future, rather than having to leave home to find opportunity elsewhere.

That shift will not happen by accident and needs Government to back British supply chains, to ensure that we build the infrastructure and elements we need here, not overseas. It means putting in specific sector support for industries such as steel manufacturing and construction to adopt hydrogen where it is needed—for example, hydrogen for direct reduced iron. It means ensuring that contracts come with conditions on fair pay, skills and apprenticeships. And it means putting local communities in the driving seat, devolving power and investment so that the people of regions such as Teesside can shape this transition, not just watch it happen from the sidelines.

Given the outsized role the north of England is already playing through the three major clusters, the Government should perhaps establish a regional body—an acceleration forum—to draw together existing work and drive hydrogen development in the north. In any case, pioneering businesses, research partners and regional governments are driving the work forward, and co-ordinating that investment and innovation is important.

I am slightly more cautious about domestic heating, which has been touched on in the debate. That is purely because our region saw the unsuccessful trial in Redcar in 2023, when the public opposed the project in the end. It is important that people are brought along in the process. That is not to say these things are not safe or possible—there are areas of the country where blending works well—but it is about doing this with communities.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I already made the point that we need to take the public with us, but that would be the same for any hydrogen application. Where would we be if people were so concerned about hydrogen that they did not want to be on a hydrogen bus or a hydrogen-powered aeroplane? Is there not a case for educating the public better, rather than abandoning projects altogether?

[Luke Myer]

I can only speak to the public shift we saw in our region. The public are fully behind projects such as hydrogen fuels for public transport, which we are seeing trials of in Teesside. But, for whatever reason, there was much more reluctance over the Redcar trial, and it was not without significant investment in educating people on the benefits.

[Tom Collins]

Once again, I intervene only because I have painful personal experience of this situation. The Redcar trial was subject to a distinct, explicit and targeted campaign seeking to bring about its failure. It was extremely frustrating to experience, as the trial was testing both electrification of heat and conversion to 100% hydrogen—two key pathways for decarbonising heat that need to be validated. It was very frustrating to see that, and it was the result of a targeted campaign, but we have also seen that where the engineering is well explained and consumers are able to understand that this is just a different gas—in fact, a gas that already circulated in UK gas pipes prior to the conversion of the 1960s—these things can be done successfully. It is therefore important that we show positive ambition for hydrogen and help the public to feel secure about a problem where the engineering has been solved.

[Luke Myer]

Having tried to make many of the points that my hon. Friend made during that experience, I am more sceptical about whether that shift will happen quickly or easily. There is certainly huge potential for industrial use and for transport.

In any case, our region helped to power Britain’s industrial revolution, and we can do the same today through the age of clean energy. Hydrogen can anchor a new era of good jobs and pride in our communities if we have the ambition to make it work for working people.

Speciality Steel UK: Insolvency

Luke Myer Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

As the hon. Lady will know, one of the blast furnaces had already closed by the time we came into government. We had long conversations with Tata about a different model that we had hoped it would pursue. We were unsuccessful with that. We have now improved the outcomes and the support for that workforce, and I was very pleased to be at the first stage of the build of the electric arc furnace at Port Talbot in July, which will secure many thousands of jobs there. We will continue to support Port Talbot with the £500 million that we are investing.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her statement, and for the decisive action this Government have taken to safeguard steel jobs across the country. Liberty Pipes is delivering an important contract for the Government’s landmark carbon capture, usage and storage project in our region. Can the Minister provide assurance not only that those jobs in our region are unaffected, but that this project continues at pace?

[Sarah Jones]

Liberty Pipes is separate and is not part of this situation at all. Of course, there will be concern in the wider group about the impact—I understand that—but at the moment, there is no crossover. Liberty Pipes will continue to do what it is doing and, I am sure, will continue to support the CCUS industry, which is great news for the workers there, and great news for us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Myer Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

The F-35 programme is the largest international collaborative defence programme in the world. The hon. Gentleman refers to the recent High Court judgment, and as the High Court itself noted, the UK cannot make changes to the F-35 programme unilaterally—that requires agreement across all the partner nations and the availability of a workable programme-level change to isolate end users across thousands of different components.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

5. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the industrial strategy on Teesside.

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds)]

My hon. Friend’s area is one of the most exciting investment locations in the world—in clean energy opportunities, carbon capture and storage, and offshore wind, but also in creative and digital investment, chemicals production and steel. Specific interventions for the Tees Valley include recommitting £160 million for its investment zone, enhanced support for the Teesside freeport for clean energy industries, and a lot of money for transport for city regions funding. Of particular interest to businesses in his area will be the new British industrial competitiveness scheme, which will reduce electricity costs by £35 to £40 per megawatt-hour for many businesses in Teesside.

[Luke Myer]

I am pleased that the Government have been listening to us and backing Teesside businesses with serious investment—I have been pushing for investment in clean power and advanced manufacturing. Last year, the 2024 UK tech jobs report named Middlesbrough as the UK’s fastest-growing tech destination. Will Ministers work with me to bring in investment in frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence to our region as well?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

My hon. Friend and his colleagues are incredible champions for bringing investment into the area, and I recognise and thank him for that support. He is right to say that some of the perhaps more traditional industries, though very exciting for the future, are not just the only story in his area. He has mentioned tech and the creative industries too, and I would say they are huge opportunities. Specifically, our investment in skills to make sure that there is a pipeline of talent in every part of the country is a formidable and significant contribution to delivering on those opportunities. I look forward to continuing to work with him on these issues.