Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and for championing her constituency and its industries. She makes a very good point, and I recently met her to talk about this. This week, I met Community trade union representatives from the steel sector in her area as well. I am always happy to meet again to see what we can do.

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

As the Minister knows, it is not just South Yorkshire that is facing difficult decisions about the steel industry. I thank her for our recent meeting about the future of Scunthorpe. Is she able to add anything on when we might expect an announcement? As she will appreciate, particularly at this time of year, there is growing anxiety among the workforce.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and for his interest in his constituents and their jobs in the steel industry. As he says, we have met to talk about this, and I have nothing new to add today, other than that we continue with our conversations with British Steel. We are working as fast as we can. Obviously, it is ultimately up to British Steel to decide what it wants to do and take forward, but we stand ready to support and work with it.

Future of the Post Office

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s question. We need to take a number of steps in order to see mutualisation as a realistic way forward. In the first instance, there has to be a sustained change in Post Office culture about how sub-postmasters are treated. On that, the establishment of the postmaster panel and a consultative council, announced by the chair of the Post Office, Nigel Railton, are significant steps forward. I hope the sub-postmasters in my hon. Friend’s constituency will genuinely engage with those bodies. I do not think we can impose mutualisation; it must come up from the grassroots, with the Government being willing to look at that option. The changes that Post Office senior management is looking to make are a good first step in their own right, and have the potential for future positive governance change in the long run. I genuinely encourage my hon. Friend and his sub-postmasters to engage in the Green Paper process.

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

One of the post offices on today’s list of potential closures is in Grimsby, where many of my constituents work and run businesses. The Minister rightly says that Crown post offices are more costly. I can assure him that the one in Grimsby, for example, could easily operate in much smaller premises or in premises shared with other businesses in the commercial centre of the town. Will the Minister give an assurance that he will ensure the Post Office looks at operating out of alternative premises, and cuts its costs before considering closures?

[Gareth Thomas]

We have made it clear to the Post Office that it has to talk to sub-postmasters, stakeholders and the trade unions about the costs associated with directly managed branches. We are committed to the requirement to ensure there is easy access to a post office branch for every community, up and down the country. We want the Post Office to continue to talk to people who want to run post offices in their communities, and we continue to encourage it to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

Given that almost 9,500 bank branches closed over the past 14 years, on the Conservative party’s watch, it has increasingly been left to the Post Office to provide vital banking services on the high street. I am sure the banking industry recognises its responsibility to work with us to ensure that sub-postmasters, whose pay has not increased for a decade, and the Post Office have what they need to help meet the critical cash and banking needs of all our constituents.

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

Although yesterday’s announcements may dampen businesses’ expansion plans, many businesses in my constituency and elsewhere find it difficult to expand because of national grid connections. What are Ministers doing to engage with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and National Grid to ensure that connections are available?

[Sarah Jones]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman asks what we are doing to engage with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, because I sit across that Department and the Department for Business and Trade. The entire point of my role is to make sure that we join up the two Departments, so that we can crack some of these problems. The grid is No. 1 on our list.

Steel Industry

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) on securing this timely debate.

Part of the British steel site at Scunthorpe falls within my Brigg and Immingham constituency, so needless to say I take a keen interest in its future. The site is known across the country and further afield for the steel it produces, which is top-quality virgin steel made from raw materials. This method of production results in products used for rail tracks and tyre wire, all the way to cruise ships and the Shard. British steel can be found all over the world. The steelworkers who make this world-class product are understandably proud of the skills they possess.

There is widespread, cross-party agreement that steel is incredibly important for everything we do, from defence to growth, which the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) mentioned. If anything can be defined as a core industry—one of genuine strategic importance—it must be steel.

Workers and their families in my constituency and across northern Lincolnshire are incredibly concerned. They have heard rumours and seen press reports in recent weeks that suggest an early end to the imports of coke, the imminent closure of blast furnaces and escalating plans to import steel from the other side of the world to replace the products they make. Understandably, they want to know once and for all whether the rumours are true. They want certainty on whether the plan is to keep the blast furnaces running at least until electric arc furnaces are fully operational—does that still stand?

Prior to the election, Labour candidates stood on a platform of support for the UK steel industry, and billions of pounds were pledged. My constituents have not forgotten what they were told. They want to know where those billions are going and they want to see them spent in Scunthorpe. Will the Minister level with workers at the Scunthorpe site and set out exactly what this Government’s intentions are? Do they want to keep a domestic steel industry, like many countries around the world, or do they not?

The absolute least that the workforce at Scunthorpe deserve is for the Government to be completely frank with them on this issue. Do the Government value the work of steelmakers in Scunthorpe? Do they value the strategic capability of our nation to make our own steel? Do they want to keep domestic steel production for use in infrastructure and defence? How and when are they going secure that? If they cannot answer yes to those questions, can they explain what is so exceptional about the UK that means we cannot aspire to maintain a steel industry? The reality is that maintaining a steel industry will always demand support from the public purse. Without a steel industry, we are in effect admitting that we no longer aspire to be a major manufacturing nation and accepting that we do not value the defence industry.

In discussions on steel there are those who like to criticise the efforts of the previous Government. Although I do not want to spend the short time I have on political point scoring, I do think it is worth setting out some of the realities. The Conservative Government extended trade tariffs on steel products twice in the last Parliament; they did this having listened to MPs and businesses. It is a fact that they brought forward measures to help energy costs, and that they paid workers’ wages at Scunthorpe for many months to maintain jobs, skills and the site itself during the sale of the business five years ago. These were tangible, proactive decisions made by a Government who understood the importance of steel to our nation.

The former Member for Scunthorpe, Holly Mumby-Croft, mentioned steel over 200 times in questions and debates during her time in the House. I recognise that the current hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin) is a Minister, meaning, I presume, that he supports the Government’s policies in relation to the steel industry. If his mailbag is similar to mine, he will know the scale of anxiety across the whole area. Just last week he was calling for a deal at Scunthorpe similar to the one in south Wales, where thousands of workers are set to lose their jobs. I want to see a policy that supports jobs, produces top-quality steel and supports the whole supply chain, which Scunthorpe relies on.

Under the last Labour Government, steel production and jobs halved in the UK. Will the Minister reassure workers at the Scunthorpe site that this Labour Government do not intend to repeat that legacy? I understand that the Minister is involved in current negotiations and will not be able to share all the detail the discussions. If that is the case, can she at least give the workers some clarity on when she expects there to be an announcement on the future of the site? Will she also reassure residents that she is working with North Lincolnshire council’s leader Rob Waltham, who proactively travelled to China a few weeks ago to meet the owners in person? He is taking a front-and-centre role in putting together a masterplan for the site to ensure that jobs and opportunities are brought to the area. He must be fully supported by the Government in that work; will the Minister confirm that that support will be offered?

I am conscious that there are those who will challenge the continuation of blast furnace steelmaking on environmental grounds, but it is quite clear that ending the production of virgin steel in the UK, and then importing virgin steel from abroad, would simply be offshoring our own emissions and adding the emissions involved in the transport of the steel to the UK. We should certainly not consider patting ourselves on the back for making environmental improvements if the Government’s plan is simply to allow the same or worse levels of emissions to be created elsewhere and for the steel then to be brought to the UK on diesel ships.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

The hon. Member is making a great speech and makes a great point. Does he agree that if we are going to go down this road of net zero madness and make our steel more expensive, we should ban steel and steel products from other countries that are made in blast furnaces?

[Martin Vickers]

There would certainly be a case for the point the hon. Member makes. I gently point out that net zero is actually crucial to the economy of northern Lincolnshire, which I represent—I am thinking of the Humber Zero project and similar schemes.

I think you are urging me to come to a conclusion, Mrs Harris, so I will miss the next two or three pages out. I will say that whatever deal is reached now is in this Government’s hands. This an industry that, if lost, will be lost forever. I call on the Minister to redouble her efforts to secure the future of steelmaking in Scunthorpe and throughout the country. It is hard to exaggerate how crucial this is to Scunthorpe, to northern Lincolnshire and to the UK as a whole. We must bring this situation to a conclusion speedily to avoid the anxiety that workers are currently experiencing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I think I was fairly clear. We have been in opposition. We want to produce primary steel in this country; the previous Government got us to a point where that is almost impossible without huge investment. We are supplying £2.5 billion of investment and looking, quite rightly, at the best way to spend that to create a viable steel future for this country. We are looking at direct reduced iron as part of our steel strategy, which the previous Government did not do.

The UK’s ambition is to ramp up investment. Many hon. Members talked of the need to procure British steel in this country, and we are now in a situation where 95% of the steel procured by the UK Government for infrastructure is British, if the necessary type of steel is made in the UK. The issue is that we do not produce all the different and right types of steel, so we need to ensure that we use the Procurement Act 2023 as much as we can to drive economic growth in steel.

I disagree with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness on whether the green agenda can drive up jobs—we think that it can. For example, the Korean company SeAH is building a factory in Teesside that will build monopiles, which are the big structures that go into the ocean and anchor wind turbines. It is currently building that structure with 30,000 tonnes of steel from British Steel. We want to get to a point where we are not only building those kinds of factories in this country but using British steel where we can to make the infrastructure.

At the moment, we do not have a factory that makes turbines on the scale that we need for floating offshore wind, but SeAH is building that factory because it has an agreement with RWE, which will be running the turbines that it builds in future. That green job development into wind and renewable energy is driving our ability to build a factory in Teesside to create hundreds of jobs to build those monopiles, and we are using British steel. That is the kind of future that we want to see through the steel strategy; we are looking at those opportunities to bring new steel companies into this country and to find ways to drive up production in this country.

I should address the issues holding us back, as they were mentioned in the debate. China and excess capacity is a huge issue that we should not underplay. China is now the biggest steel producer in the world and its unfair subsidies have led to massive steel over-production, which fuels global overcapacity and drives down prices. That is a global issue with local consequences that makes profitable steel production here in the UK much harder. That key global situation is helping to shape our future steel strategy and we will need to tackle that problem through things like the carbon border adjustment mechanism—CBAM—and ensure that we are working with a level playing field.

Energy prices were mentioned by many Members, and for too long British energy-intensive industries, including the steel sector, have been held back by high electricity costs. Again, I disagree with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness: electricity prices are set by global gas prices and the problem is our dependence on fossil fuels, as well as the fact that we did not mitigate for that situation in this country at all. When all the prices shot up with the war in Ukraine, we were in a worse position than many countries around the world.

The British industry supercharger that the previous Government developed, which the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) mentioned, will bring down electricity costs for the UK’s most energy intensive industries, but we know that we need to go further. It brings down only 60% of costs and there is still a disparity. We believe that, in an unstable world, cheap home-grown green energy is the future. That is what will drive down prices, reduce our exposure to the volatile fossil fuel market, protect bill payers and strengthen our energy independence. Fundamentally, that is what will bring down costs in the long term.

Members also mentioned the challenges of decarbonisation. Tata and British Steel’s plans to invest in electric arc furnaces are driven by market conditions and the desire to reduce their carbon footprint—customers want greener steel. The UK is going to have a CBAM. If we were producing steel in the UK with blast furnaces, we would be massively inhibited because the EU is bringing in a CBAM, so the cost of exporting to the EU would be much higher. We have to deal with the world as we find it, which again is where we disagree with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness. We cannot look back and try to re-create the past; we have to deal with the world as we find it, which means that we have to move towards those more efficient and greener energies.

The EU, where 78% of our steel exports went in 2023—that is worth pointing out—will bring in its carbon border adjustment mechanism in 2027. We rely on exporting a lot of the steel we produce to the EU, and we would be at a massive disadvantage were we to carry on producing steel from blast furnaces. We have committed to a UK carbon border adjustment mechanism, which will give UK businesses the confidence that, when they invest in decarbonisation and electrification, they will not be at a disadvantage. That is important.

On other issues mentioned by hon. Members, I should touch on Scunthorpe, because that is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. No one wants to see any job losses, and everyone wants to see the steel industry thrive. Through our strategy, that is what we want to do. For commercially confidential reasons, which I am sure hon. Members understand, I cannot talk about our conversations with the owners, but I reassure Members that we are having conversations all the time and that we are working unbelievably hard to get a solution for Scunthorpe and to give the certainty that the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham talked about. I completely understand the issue with the instability of the current situation, but all I can say to him is that we are doing all we can to work with the company on what the future will be.

[Martin Vickers]

The Minister and I share a desire to see a thriving steel industry. On a couple of occasions in her reply, she mentioned wanting to halt its decline, as well as the production of the steel strategy in the spring. Can she give any sort of assurance that there will be no job losses at Scunthorpe until the strategy is produced? Then we can then work together to plan the way forward.

[Sarah Jones]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that I am not in a position to define what commercial companies do. While we are trying to do what we can, I cannot do anything other than say that we are working incredibly hard with the owners to ensure that we get to a point that we want to get to.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned Harland and Wolff, and the same situation is true there. We are working hard to understand the situation and we are hoping for a resolution relatively soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The hon. Member makes a really important point. We all have common areas of concern about the United Kingdom economy as a whole—the poor productivity since the financial crisis, the level of growth not delivering the living standards and public services that we want, and the low investment figure—but there are also specific challenges in each part of the country. The relationship between national policy, local policy and local leadership is the way to address those issues.

The hon. Member is an extremely skilled parliamentarian, and he added on a couple of issues that are clearly beyond the remit of the Department for Business and Trade—he did it very well. On the reset of the relationship with the European Union, there are practical, pragmatic measures that I will ask all Members to support, particularly on the recognition of professional qualifications, which I think could have been part of the deal, and what we are planning for food and agricultural products, if we can be successful in that negotiation. Those are our asks. There will be asks from the other side, and we will have to work with our partners to negotiate these things, but I recognise the hon. Member’s key point: yes, there are UK-wide needs, but there are specific needs in each area, and we have to get them right—for his area, for mine, and for everyone’s present.

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

Further to the question about Air Products asked by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), she and I met the company last night; as is often the case, business wants to move faster than the Government. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that he will do his very best to ensure that his Department meets the deadlines that Air Products hopes for? In a wider context, as the hon. Lady said, northern Lincolnshire is a prime area for the renewables sector, and the Air Products development is key to that.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that business is often frustrated by the pace at which the Government can go. We are doing a considerable amount of work on how business interfaces with the Government as a whole, how that is managed as a relationship, and how we can assemble the different parts of the state in the way needed to respond to some of our big investment opportunities.

Frankly, in the past, we have often seen the UK miss out, particularly to, for instance, the French. The “Choose France” policy has been fairly successful from their point of view by taking some investments that I believe should have come to the UK. They have got ahead of us. We have to understand that the competitive environment that we are now in is extremely challenging and we have missed out on things. We have to change and get it right and better. I will work with the hon. Gentleman— I have already highlighted the meeting scheduled with my Minister of State—and he makes a fair point that we all recognise has to be addressed.

UK Steel Manufacturing

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade to make a statement on the future of steel manufacturing in the UK.

[The Minister for Industry (Sarah Jones)]

The inheritance the Government received from the Conservative party was nothing short of a disgrace on steel: over a decade of lurching from crisis to crisis, with no clear plan to safeguard the future of a competitive domestic steel industry. This Government are determined to change that. We have been working hard over the summer to set a clear forward direction on steel and resolve a number of complex issues that were only made worse by the indifference of the last Government.

Steel has been one of my Department’s priorities since our first day in office. We are standing by our commitment to spend £2.5 billion to rebuild the steel industry. That is in addition to the £500 million for Tata Steel. The funding will harness public and private investment to secure jobs and boost growth. We will take action to improve the wider business environment for the sector, including reducing energy bills and enabling more green UK-made steel to be used in our infrastructure projects. The Government are clear, as the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) has made very clear, that decarbonisation must not mean de-industrialisation.

Discussions regarding the transformation of Port Talbot have continued at pace over recent weeks, involving the company, the workforce and the Welsh Government. We are also in ongoing talks with British Steel in a similar vein.

More widely, in our first days in office we hosted steel union leaders to join us around the table and discuss our shared commitment to achieving a sustainable, profitable UK steel industry. The Secretary of State and I also met regularly with key industry stakeholders.

We know that this is not easy, but we are determined to create a brighter future for steel than the one we inherited.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank Mr Speaker for granting the urgent question. I will ignore the Minister’s political comments and focus on what is more important: the future of thousands of workers, in particular at the Scunthorpe works, part of which falls within my Brigg and Immingham constituency and where many hundreds of my constituents work.

There have been widespread media reports suggesting that coke will stop being imported from October, which would mean production would stop in Scunthorpe by Christmas. There are rumours concerning the fact that employees will be given notice very soon. That is obviously creating great anxiety among those directly employed by British Steel and those in the supply chain, which in northern Lincolnshire extends to many thousands of people and many businesses.

I accept that much of this is media speculation, but if you and your family are reliant on an income from British Steel or a business that supports the sector, it is a very worrying time. Many people who have worked in the steel industry all their lives, and people who know about the market for steel, have a genuine concern that turning off the blast furnaces would see the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of steel manufacturing, certainly in Scunthorpe and possibly more widely. If we allow Scunthorpe’s furnaces to close, we will become more dependent on world markets, and effectively the best outcome that can be delivered from that is Scunthorpe ending up rolling steel produced in countries across the world, which would leave this nation vulnerable to price and supply volatility. Unions have said that that would be devastating. Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, a GMB national officer, has been quoted as saying:

“Early closure of the blast furnaces at Scunthorpe would be devastating for the community and workforce”

—and so it would.

“Unions have been assured throughout the process that the blast furnace operations would continue throughout the construction of an electric arc furnace. There has been no consultation over an early closure.”

Indeed, when the Minister visited Scunthorpe earlier this year, she said—according to the Scunthorpe Telegraph, so it must be true—that the UK needs to maintain capacity to produce primary steel. Is that the Government’s policy?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has exceeded the two minutes allotted to him. I do not know whether he wants to give us one final sentence.

[Martin Vickers]

I will bring my remarks to a conclusion, if I may, Madam Deputy Speaker, by saying that if the UK is to maintain a domestic steel manufacturing capacity, the Government must accept that there will always be a burden on the taxpayer.

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. Let me say a couple of things in response.

First, the hon. Gentleman talked about being political. It is not being political to say that the last Government allowed the steel industry to decline; it is a statement of fact. It is also a statement of fact to say that they left a £22 billion black hole in our finances, and a statement of fact to say that the money they committed to Port Talbot came from the reserves that they had spent three times over. I am ashamed to tell the House that the £500 million was not real money: it was in the reserves that the last Government had spent three times over in the first three months of the year. In contrast, there will be real money for our investment in steel, drawn from the national wealth fund.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman is, of course, right in his analysis of the concern and unease that people are feeling given the importance of these jobs, and about the worry they must be experiencing as a result of what they are reading. All I can say to him is that we are talking regularly to the trade unions, as he would expect us to, and to British Steel and the local community. I am sure he will understand that I cannot comment on those commercially confidential conversations. He also made a point about virgin steel that we made regularly in opposition. We are looking into how we can secure primary steelmaking in this country through our £2.5 billion investment in UK steel.

UK Trade Performance

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I think the point that the hon. Gentleman is making is that we cannot be complacent about what is happening in either country. Even as we talk about good news, we need to continue working to ensure that those things do not disappear. He is right that we should do as much as we can with the Department for the Economy. Now that a Minister is in place, it will be a lot easier for us to co-ordinate and see how we can work together to increase employment and improve wages and productivity in both regions.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. It was particularly encouraging to hear the news about the manufacturing sector. However, as she will be aware, if growth in that sector is to be maintained, continued Government support will be needed. Will it be forthcoming?

[Kemi Badenoch]

We have put in place a £4.5 billion advanced manufacturing plan for the manufacturing sector. Firms will need to ensure that they qualify for that funding. We are also doing what we can to bring in investment—especially foreign investment—which will help to drive productivity. It is good to see that business and investors globally want to invest all across the UK, not just in London, and not just in financial services but in manufacturing, certainly, and in our green industries of offshore and renewables. There is so much that we can do that will create industries and companies fit for the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

7. What assessment she has made of the impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on businesses.

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)]

Since we left the EU, we have used our new freedoms to secure free trade deals with 73 countries, including EU partners, and that accounted for £1.1 trillion of UK trade in 2022. We have simplified import tariffs to lower costs for businesses and households. We plan to remove over 50% of inherited EU regulations by 2026. Our reforms to employment laws could save UK businesses up to £1 billion a year, ensuring that the UK is the best place in the world to start up and grow a business.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her reply. Measured by tonnage, the port of Immingham in my constituency is the largest port in the country, with almost 50 million tonnes of cargo each year. It is also a vital part of the renewable energy sector. Immingham is surely an example of the fact that not only EU trade but worldwide trade is important to the UK. If my right hon. Friend were able to visit at some time, she would be able to see that for herself.

[Kemi Badenoch]

As ever, my hon. Friend is a great advocate for his Cleethorpes constituency. He is right that Immingham is the No. 1 port in terms of tonnage and is vital to our trade with the EU and the rest of the world. If our diaries allow, I or one of my Ministers will be delighted to visit and see at first hand the vital role Immingham plays in the transition to renewable energy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

We thank the right hon. Gentleman for his work. I have taken a quick look at the report, although it was only issued this morning. All the recommendations he makes in that report we have either fixed or are fixing with the assistance of the Horizon compensation advisory board. We agree with him that we need to bring the compensation schemes in house. The GLO—group litigation order—scheme is already being delivered by the Department for Business and Trade. We believe that further compensation will flow from our overturning of convictions. We will be overturning hundreds of convictions through legislation in this House very shortly, as quickly as possible, and that will provide a flow of hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation for those individuals. That will be done by the Department for Business and Trade.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

As the trade envoy to the western Balkans, the issue of Government-to-Government agreements is raised with me frequently. There is no doubt that if they were available, more deals could be done with the Balkan countries. Will the Minister give an update on the Government’s position, please?

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend, in particular for his brilliant work as a trade envoy. He covers more markets than any of our other trade envoys with great skill and dexterity. Back in 2017, this Department and I were pioneers in putting in place a G-to-G agreement with Peru for the UK to be the delivery partner for the 2019 Pan American games. A great deal of business with and in Peru has resulted since. We remain open to future G-to-G agreements on a case-by-case basis. I am happy to meet him to discuss what specific things he has in mind that would work in the western Balkans.

Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [Lords]

Martin Vickers Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

Well, he should know them, because I believe I referred to them in the Select Committee; I hope he was listening. The point I am making to the Chair of the Select Committee is that trade is dynamic. On some issues that we are negotiating and discussing with our partners, we have differences of opinion; and others are going swimmingly. This is not a reason for us to cast aspersions on our trade relationships with the countries in question.

Joining this partnership will deliver for our manufacturers, but crucially it will also deliver for our globally renowned services sector. The UK is already the world’s second largest exporter of services, behind only the US, and services exports are at record levels. CPTPP, with its modern and ambitious rules on services and digital trade, plays to the UK’s strengths, given that almost 80% of our economy is services-based. It will reduce market access barriers, such as data localisation requirements; British businesses will not have to set up costly servers or data centres in each member country, and that will save them significant time, money and other resources. This agreement will help flagship British businesses such as Standard Chartered and BT to gain smoother access to markets in Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia, strengthening our trade with those nations for years to come.

We also have a ratchet mechanism for the first time with Malaysia, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, Brunei and Vietnam, meaning that if those countries relax rules for a particular service, restrictions cannot then be reintroduced in future. That is another clear example of how this agreement will unlock smoother, simpler trade. The director general of the Institute of Export and International Trade, Marco Forgione, has rightly said:

“This is all good news for UK businesses, giving them greater access to one of the fastest growing regions in the world”.

The issue is not just the benefits that joining this partnership will bring over the short term. This is a growing agreement, designed to expand and bring in more markets and more opportunities for UK businesses in the long run. As the first acceding country, we will be ideally placed to take advantage of that future growth.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I welcome our accession to CPTPP, which I think will be of great national benefit, but understandably Members across the House will look to businesses in their constituency. The Secretary of State is well aware that many businesses in my constituency in the Humber region are focused on the energy sector, particularly renewable energy. Does she see any great advantages for them?

[Kemi Badenoch]

There are multiple advantages that will accrue to my hon. Friend’s constituency. I do not specifically have figures for the energy sector, but I do have good news relating to Yorkshire and the Humber: 465 businesses are already exporting to Malaysia from Yorkshire and the Humber, and CPTPP will help to boost that region’s economy by around £210 million in the long run. In 2022, Yorkshire and the Humber exported £1.3 billion-worth of goods to CPTPP. Within five years, tariffs of up to 30% will be eliminated on UK exports of machinery to Malaysia, cutting costs for businesses in Yorkshire and the Humber. We will reduce tariffs and non-tariff barriers, which could mean many more companies—such as the jukebox manufacturer Sound Leisure, which already exports to five CPTPP countries—being able to enter more dynamic markets.

The Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), raised questions about China, and I promised to address them. On China’s application to accede to the agreement, which I know many hon. Members are interested in, let me first say that there are six economies with applications to join the group—China, Taiwan, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Ukraine—and more may apply. Members have not yet made any decisions on which economies will accede in future.

Every applicant must fulfil three essential criteria, called the Auckland principles, to join the group. First, they must be able to meet the high standards of the agreement. Secondly, they must have a track record of compliance with existing trade commitments. Thirdly, and crucially, they must command a consensus of the whole group. These are strong criteria, and they make it clear that working as a bloc is vital. The purpose of this partnership is to be a growing trade bloc, and we share that ambition. We want this agreement to grow, but our accession has set a clear precedent for those that follow. The robust process that the UK has been through has only reinforced the high standards that the partnership seeks to promote, and it has proved that the bar is not easy to meet.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

It is really important for us to not misrepresent what is happening on steel. Our steel industry is not disappearing; our steel industry is evolving. We will continue to have significant steelmaking capability in the UK, including producing materials for the industries the hon. Lady talks about. But we should also remember that the changes to Port Talbot are part of the decarbonisation that all Opposition Members have been asking for. This is the biggest single emitter of carbon in the UK and this House voted to reach net zero by 2050. Everything we are doing is to ensure that we do that in a sustainable and sensible way.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Following on from the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft), for the sake of clarity, can the Secretary of State confirm that it remains the Government’s position to ensure that the UK has the capacity to produce virgin steel here in the UK?

[Kemi Badenoch]

The Government maintain that we want to ensure that we keep steelmaking capability in the UK. At the moment, we import ore to make steel. When we talk about virgin steel many people assume there are no imports in the supply chain, but there still are, even now, and whatever changes we make will require some imports. However, we are making sure that our steel industry is more resilient than ever before, at a time when it faces oversupply from China and India. That is the real problem faced by the steel industry in all of western Europe. We do a lot with tariff measures, such as steel safeguards—