Scunthorpe Steelworks
Debate between Matt Western and Sarah Jones(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Sarah Jones
As the right hon. Gentleman would expect, the Secretary of State is and has been talking to Jingye, as have I and officials. Those negotiations will continue. The site at Scunthorpe produces a lot of different types of steel, as he will know. It provides 95% of all steel used by Network Rail. It is incredibly important in that sense, and he is right to draw attention to that. There are many different ways of making steel. On the primary steel point, we are investigating the merits of investing in direct reduced iron, which is when hydrogen is used instead of the old blast furnaces. The reality is that the Scunthorpe blast furnaces are old infrastructure—decades old—that needs updating. We need to move to new technology, and that is what we are trying to do with Jingye.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Clearly, the absence of an industrial strategy in the past five years has had an impact, so I welcome the Government’s notion of a steel plan. Given that the industrial strategy features three major elements—construction, defence and energy infrastructure—will the steel plan look not at a 10-year horizon but at one of 25 to 30 years, to ensure that we get the investment we need for the UK to have virgin steel production, like all other 19 countries of the G20?
Sarah Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his expertise as a member of the Select Committee. We had this debate yesterday. Yes, having a long view has to be the right thing. The Government must ensure that we spend that £2.5 billion of taxpayers’ money in the right way to secure the industry well into the future.
UK Steel Manufacturing
Debate between Matt Western and Sarah Jones(7 months ago)
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Sarah Jones
The hon. Gentleman talks about our obsession with decarbonisation and producing green steel, but we also have to go with the market. The market and big companies are now saying to us, “We want to buy green steel”. That is what they are demanding and what we will produce. If we do not, we will not be selling it on the same basis. We will use the money we are investing through the national wealth fund to develop a steel strategy that will enable us to bring new entrants into the UK, which the previous Government did not try to do, so that we can have a vibrant, competitive steel economy in the UK and create good, highly paid jobs in the green industries of the future. If we fall behind, others will come before us and take our jobs.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Everyone agrees that steel is a crucial strategic foundational industry for this country, but it suffers from very narrow margins. It is one of the least profitable sectors of all. In this country, we suffer from a real cost disadvantage because of energy prices. Other countries, such as France and Germany, have much lower energy costs. They have a lot of nuclear, which meets net zero requirements. Does the Minister agree that underlines the importance of why this country urgently needs an energy strategy?
Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to ensure we are producing cheap, clean energy in this country. As he rightly says, that means nuclear, as well as solar, wind, offshore wind and everything else in our armoury. This Government have been unbelievably proactive, with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero ending the ban on onshore wind and agreeing to some of the solar panel installations we need. We had an enormously successful contracts for difference round that will allow floating offshore wind and other types of energy, and we are talking in detail about where we will take nuclear. Together, all those things mean that the country will have lower energy costs, that we can be more competitive and that our industry can thrive.