Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Richard Tice Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

I absolutely support the Government’s commitment to electric arc as the future of steelmaking, but I would be interested to hear more from the Minister. In this regard and so many others, the key priority in decarbonising our industries is to bring down the cost of electricity. This Government already took an important step in the last Budget, but we must go further if we are to see the sort of expansion in steelmaking that we need.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the opportunities from an electric arc furnace, but does he recognise the vital importance of keeping blast furnace primary steelmaking capability, which can only take place in Scunthorpe?

[Mr Perkins]

Yes, I do. I should say to the hon. Gentleman that I had the opportunity last night to predict that he would be the leader of Reform by the time we went into the general election, and I stand by that. We would normally expect to see a party leader in the House of Commons. We never see the Reform leader, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), in the House of Commons, which is why I predicted that it would be the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice)—but I am getting distracted and will return to his question.

I am absolutely committed to doing everything we can to decarbonise, but in certain sectors doing so would be to deindustrialise. There is no sense in allowing blast furnaces only for imported products and not looking after that ourselves. I welcome the Government’s drive and direction, but I absolutely want to see that future for Scunthorpe. We should look at ways that we can use greener gases rather than pursue anything against that.

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[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be conflating two issues. Last year, when the emergency legislation was introduced and Parliament was recalled on a Saturday for the first time since the Falklands war, we did not stand in its way, but what we are asking for in the new clause is for Parliament to be kept informed. Let us agree that we all want to be kept informed about how the discussions are going and to find out what the Government are thinking about their exit plan. I made the point yesterday about the public interest test that it is very unclear whether, once the Secretary of State determines that it is in the public interest for this particular site to be owned by the taxpayer, there will ever be the potential for it to change to different state.

[Richard Tice]

The shadow Minister seems to be implying that, essentially, the business should be up for sale at any moment, almost at any price. It is incredibly destabilising for any business and its employees to suffer that uncertainty. What is required is a period of stability and investment, with a strong vision. She previously made comments about relying on auditors at the National Audit Office to make a strategic judgment about what is in the sovereign national interest. With the greatest of respect to auditors, it is experienced businesspeople—including the Minister—who understand the industry and who can make a much stronger judgment about what is required to retain primary steelmaking in this country, with that sovereign capability, than a bunch of auditors.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

I actually think the hon. Gentleman is also agreeing with me on this point. I yield to no one in my admiration for the Minister and his expertise in this industry, but I heard the hon. Gentleman say that he too thinks that it will take business nous and investment into this business to bring it back to a state where it is making money. I also heard him say that he would therefore not object to hearing a report to Parliament every six months about the progress being made, so I look forward to him supporting this amendment in the Lobby later. We want our Ministers to actively work towards returning the business to private ownership, so we want to hear in Parliament about that ongoing progress and to be able to hold Ministers accountable and ask them questions on exactly that from time to time.

New clause 10 would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament every six months on the impact that nationalising steel undertakings has had on inward investment into the UK. I mentioned earlier that the Government’s own impact assessment worries about the potential for a “chilling effect” where Government are taking assets into public ownership in the way that this Bill allows. During its history, the UK has very much relied on being seen as a stable and predictable environment for inward investment. Expropriating and nationalising private businesses sets a precedent that could deter future investors, not just in the steel sector but across the wider economy. The new clause would ensure that Parliament received a regular, transparent analysis of how these interventions were affecting investor confidence and capital flows into the UK economy. We all hope that they would not be adversely affected, but we would want Parliament to know, and this new clause would ensure that any damage to our reputation was identified, understood and addressed early.

New clause 11 would prevent the Secretary of State from using the powers in the Bill to grant any selective advantages through state resources that could distort competition. It would ensure that nationalised steel undertakings were not unfairly advantaged over privately owned ones. Without this safeguard, there is a real risk that nationalised entities could receive preferential treatment, whether through subsidies, contracts or regulatory advantage, undermining fair competition within the domestic steel sector. If private firms believe they will be placed at a disadvantage compared with state-owned competitors, that risks deterring further investment in UK steel and related supply chains.

To conclude, these amendments are about bringing discipline, transparency and balance to a Bill that, as drafted, risks being too broad, too costly and too unconstrained. They would ensure that any intervention was properly assessed, carefully limited and consistently scrutinised, while protecting taxpayers, competition and investor confidence. If the Government are serious about supporting the steel industry, they should also be serious about accountability, value for money and a credible long-term plan, and these amendments are designed to deliver exactly that.

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[Pamela Nash]

When it comes to Dalzell, the SNP Government have not been helpful. They previously stepped in when the steelworks went into administration, and then they sold it to the current owner, who has been less than helpful.

[Richard Tice]

The hon. Lady is making a very powerful case for the importance of the heavy plate mill in her constituency, and of having the right owners of critical steelmaking capability and the functions around it. What we have seen with the failed ownership of Jingye, and with the failed ownership and fibs of companies such as Liberty, is that if we rely on an unaligned basis, without any care for the strategic importance of steelmaking, we end up in the pickle that we are in. That is why I think the hon. Lady makes a powerful case for the importance of the plate mill in the UK’s overall steel strategy going forward.

[Pamela Nash]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very helpful intervention.

For the reasons I have set out, we are getting to the point where we are losing experienced staff and equipment is in danger of going out of date. Time is running out very quickly for Dalzell. If it is left to close up shop, we will not be able simply to go back later and restart it. I have no intention of being the Member of Parliament who sees the closure of the last steelworks in Scotland, and I know the Minister has no intention of allowing that to happen on his watch.

Steel is Motherwell’s heritage and is also a key part of its progress. It is our threads in the fabric of the future of our country. I want my constituents once again to look at planes, wind turbines and bridges and be excited to know that the steel encasing them came from Motherwell.

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[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I think it has been clear throughout these two days of debate that none of us in the House underestimates the importance of the steel industry to our national economy, to our industrial resilience, and to the communities whose livelihoods depend on it. We can all agree that steel matters, and that steel jobs matter. However, we also believe that the responsible stewardship of taxpayers’ money matters, and despite the eloquent way in which the Secretary of State expressed his views on the Bill, we see it much more as a chaotic and unplanned intervention. It is not the product of a clear steel industrial strategy, but the product of a failure to negotiate a better outcome. The negotiated outcome was a possibility; the Secretary of State even went to China to try to achieve it.

It is the failure to address the root causes of the industry’s difficulties that has brought us to where we are today. The Bill could also be described as the steel industry blank cheque Bill, because it fails to protect the public purse from potentially vast and open-ended liabilities. Nationalisation does not solve the underlying issue that is making domestic steel production unprofitable. The higher employment costs, higher energy costs, planning issues, carbon pricing, regulation and levies associated with the Government’s net zero policies continue to weigh heavily on the sector, and the Bill does nothing to resolve those pressures. Instead, it transfers them wholesale on to the taxpayer.

We should reflect on how we came to this point. Not long ago, the Government told the House that they did not want to nationalise British Steel—indeed, that was presented as a last resort to be avoided—and yet here we are, because the Government have failed to negotiate an alternative. We see once again that when this Government negotiate, it is the taxpayer who picks up the bill. Since the intervention began last year, on that historic Saturday, the cost has already run to more than £1.3 million every single day. That is a bill for the taxpayer that will only become larger with this legislation. The Bill exposes the public finances to further liabilities—contingent liabilities, not only substantial but, alarmingly, potentially unlimited in terms of both their scale and their duration. This is a Government getting a blank cheque forever.

[Richard Tice]

The root cause of why we have the Bill is that the previous Conservative Government sold this business to Jingye in 2019. Another root cause is net zero, which was introduced by the Conservative Government. Surely what the Conservative party should do is show some humility about why we are here and support the Bill.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

Surely what the hon. Member should do is welcome the fact that our party is under new and outstanding leadership. We believe that politicians should not be in the business of running commercial enterprises, but I can see that that is the political position of the Reform party. The risks of inefficiency, political interference and poor capital allocation are very well known.