UK Steel Strategy

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving himself the opportunity to score an own goal. When we came into office, we inherited a broken economy that was not delivering for working people. Our international relationships were on their knees, public services were stretched to breaking point and our economy simply was not generating income because of the circumstances that we inherited. We have acted to update workers’ rights for the moment we are living in, while getting a grip on the public finances that the previous Government left in utter chaos. Those are the fundamentals that we need moving forward to deal with all the global challenges that will come our way. If we had not got the finances on a stable footing, we would be in a much worse state now that we are facing the challenges that have come our way in recent times.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to supporting our Welsh steel industry and to using much more steel made in the UK, but Llanelli’s Trostre works needs high-quality steel to make the steel packaging products it produces. That steel used to come from Port Talbot’s blast furnaces. Can the Minister tell us more about what he is doing to secure supplies of appropriate scrap metal for the electric arc furnace, and to stimulate research to ensure that the electric arc furnace can produce steel of the quality that Trostre needs?

[Peter Kyle]

My hon. Friend has been speaking about this issue for a long time. In the run-up to the transition period for electric arc furnaces, I assure her that we have a scrap working group, which is working to identify the sources of scrap metal that will be required. Just yesterday in Port Talbot, I was talking with the management, the workers and the unions, and I saw the infrastructure being built to get scrap from across the United Kingdom to where it needs to be on an enormous scale.