Nia Griffith
Main Page: Nia Griffith (Labour - Llanelli)(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) on securing the debate and on putting the case very clearly for active Government intervention to secure the future of Thamesteel and to provide optimum conditions for steel manufacturers to invest in the UK in the long term. My sincere sympathies, and those of my constituents, go out to the workers and families of Thamesteel. We know exactly what they are going through and the knock-on effect in the local community. We need to get the conditions right not just for them, but for the whole of our steel industry in the UK.
I have attended two starkly contrasting meetings recently: a very gloomy meeting with steel manufacturers, and a more upbeat meeting with motor manufacturers. The motor manufacturers said that there is investment in the UK. They have high-quality products—high-quality engines and so on—and they asked: what has happened to the supply chain? So much of the supply chain now is not in the UK. We have to get the steel part right, as well as the rest of the supply chain. We have to get the conditions right for manufacturers to want to invest in the UK in the long term.
In my constituency, Trostre does an exciting job of turning around very quickly whatever anyone wants in terms of a tin, to make exactly the right type of can with a two-week lead time. However, it cannot do that if it cannot get the raw materials—not if we end up having to import steel. We therefore welcome the investment in Port Talbot, but we must provide the right conditions for manufacturers to invest long term in steel.
Why on earth are we going down the road of the mad carbon floor price? We must work together with other countries on any form of combating emissions. We know there were faults with the emissions trading scheme. It was not perfect, but at least it was fair—it was a level playing field for everyone across Europe. We are absolutely mad to impose an additional tax on our steel industry that does not apply to any of our competitors across Europe. We have to get energy prices right. We have also got to encourage long-term investment in energy generation.
The mitigation packages, supposedly put in to help because of the carbon floor price going so high, are piecemeal, coming in too late and not giving the long-term stability we need. Furthermore, we need proper, sensible policies on taxation. We need more flexibility in capital allowances. We need money not only for research and development, but for demonstration and deployment. Unless the Government pursue an active industrial strategy, not only Thamesteel but many more steel plants will fail. I therefore hope that the Minister is listening.