Protecting Steel in the UK
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Nick Smith(11 months ago)
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Ms Ghani
My hon. Friend is right. Tata Steel is actually losing £1.5 million a day. A statement put out by Tata Steel made it very clear that our investment of £500 million, which is unprecedented for the steel sector, would enable it to safeguard steel production in the UK in the long term. I know that this is a difficult time, but without our investment we would have risked losing steelmaking at Port Talbot.
British Steel
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Nick Smith(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Ms Ghani
That is why the support was so substantial to Port Talbot, to ensure that the steel sector could continue to thrive here in the UK. Manufacturing in the UK is booming. We are the eighth largest manufacturer in the world and we need to get our goods fundamentally from the UK, including steel. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we cannot achieve net zero without steel, but we can help steelmaking to become even more green and clean than it is at the moment.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that this news gives up on the UK’s capability to produce primary steel?
Tata Steel: Port Talbot
Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Nick Smith(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Ms Ghani
That is a sensible point. There are skills strategies in lots of different portfolios within industry, and in these particular circumstances, as I mentioned, a transition board will be stood up with £100 million to do exactly that—to ensure that people are redeployed and reskilled so that they can continue to work in the sector.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The impact of the war in Ukraine has emphasised the importance of the UK’s sovereign steelmaking capacity, yet an electric-only arc model means that we will have to import supplementary virgin steel and be unable to produce high-end automotive steel. Does the Minister accept that, under this deal, the self-sufficiency of our steel industry has been dealt a real blow and that our defence capabilities are badly undermined?
Ms Ghani
The answer is no. Under this deal we have protected jobs and ensured that we will continue to have a steelmaking facility in Port Talbot that supports the diversity in the supply chain. We also realise how uniquely important the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe are. We have talked about looking at hydrogen, but as I mentioned, it is untested at this scale to work within the timeframe that is needed. This deal is really good news for the UK steel sector, enabling it and us to reach our decarbonisation targets and ensuring that we are dealing not with virgin steel but with scrap steel in a way that can be recycled within UK industry. It ensures the longevity of the steel sector in Port Talbot.