The Modification of the Law (British Steel Limited Property Transfer) Regulations 2026

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 General Committees

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd.

British Steel’s vitality and sustainability is very important to those of us on the Opposition Benches as well. When Scunthorpe faced crisis, it was a Conservative Government who stepped in. We provided financial support and kept the plant running and the workers in employment. We began the work with Tata Steel on a package to secure a future for steelmaking in Wales, and delivered an emergency loan to Celsa Steel to help it to continue trading during the covid pandemic. The Conservative party will never be indifferent to the steel industry.

We agree with the Government that retaining primary steelmaking capacity in the United Kingdom matters, but they have offered no credible plan for making British Steel viable. I have a few questions. What is the Government’s strategy for profitability? What is their plan for the energy costs that make UK steelmaking uncompetitive? What is the timeline to commercial viability?

We have heard no real detail that amounts to a serious industrial strategy for steel. The Government have spent their first period in office piling cost after cost on to British business—the national insurance increase and the Employment Rights Act 2025, and a regulatory burden that keeps growing. I would welcome clarity on how the Government’s approach for British Steel will succeed where the private sector could not. The Labour party cannot adhere to an ideological obsession with nationalisation that has nothing to do with what is best for steelworkers. We need to look forward, not back. We know that history did not end well for 1970s industrial policy, and the Government would do well to remember that.

Let me turn to the specific provisions in the SI and a number of questions it raises in respect of accountability. I want to press the Minister specifically on regulation 7, which disapplies the Procurement Act 2023 to BCo and its group undertakings. The 2023 Act is meant to ensure transparency, competition and value for money in public contracting, to protect the taxpayer from poor procurement decisions, but here we have a publicly owned company operating entirely outside those rules. Will the Minister outline why the exemption is necessary, whether it will last indefinitely, and what alternative procurement standards will apply in its place?

I have another question for the Minister about the broader nationalised steel sector. The Government will now own not only British Steel but Sheffield Forgemasters and Speciality Steel UK Ltd. These are complementary assets with different capabilities and different products, but they are all part of the same strategic picture for UK steel. The Minister touched on this, but some clarity would be appreciated. Will he outline whether there are any plans to allow Sheffield Forgemasters or Speciality Steel UK to make use of British Steel’s intellectual property or trademarks, or the British Steel brand itself? I would welcome the Minister’s thinking on that.

British Steel can and should have a future, but taxpayers are now the owners of the company, and they deserve transparency, accountability and a credible plan for commercial viability. I look forward to the Minister’s response and, in particular, his answer on the procurement question.