Ruth Jones
Main Page: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)Department Debates - View all Ruth Jones's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Gary. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words in this debate, and to acknowledge the contributions by my colleagues who are expert in this area. I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) a happy birthday, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) for bringing such an important debate to this place today.
Last Saturday, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) has already highlighted, I had the honour of marching through Newport city centre in solidarity with steelworkers from Llanwern. The strength of feeling among steelworkers and their families, and the wider community across Newport and south Wales, cannot be overstated. My home town of Newport was built on steel, and we all know someone who works in Llanwern, whether they are family, friend or neighbour. We are here not just for the steelworkers of today, but for the steelworkers of tomorrow. We all know far too well in south Wales that once these sorts of industries are closed down, it is very unlikely that the skilled, decently paid jobs they provide will ever return.
Alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East, I made a promise on that march last Saturday to stand up for the steelworkers and ensure that their fight on the production lines for the future of the industry is heard loud and clear here in Westminster. It is vital that we fight for them and all our communities. Wales’s future depends on those of us here speaking out and protecting our steel foundations, whether they are at Llanwern or Port Talbot steelworks, or at suppliers such as Island Steel or recyclers such as Sims Metal in Newport West. Our country relies on the steel industry, and this Conservative Government, with their five Prime Ministers in 14 years, have let them all down.
I do not have time to list all the ways in which this Tory Government in Westminster have endangered the future of steel in Wales, but I will highlight just a couple. Island Steel, a smaller supplier that employs 100 people at Newport docks, regularly finds itself hampered by the current quota system, which locks it out of business. That is yet another example of this current UK Government being unwilling to engage with industry or even to make an effort to understand the impact of their indecision and lack of strategy.
Another area in which I have little faith in the Tories at Westminster is their negotiations for a trade deal with India. In principle, we would all welcome a deal, but the one negotiated by the current Government is years overdue and their record on trade deals is not encouraging. They have repeatedly and consistently sold British workers short and undermined vital environmental and workplace standards that we value here in the United Kingdom. The Labour party believes that trade deals should not seek to undermine our core values, such as workers’ rights, environmental protections and fair trade. The long-overdue deal, of which we still do not have the final details, must ensure access for UK manufacturing or it will be yet another bad deal authored by the Tories and will strike another hammer blow to the prospects of our domestic steel industry. We have had a catalogue of failures and bad, short-sighted decisions from this Conservative Government. They have degraded and endangered the UK steel industry.
I do not want to end on a negative note; after all, this is a debate about the future of steel, not the past. There is hope for steel, because a UK Labour Government led by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) would start by earmarking up to £3 billion for investment in green steel alongside the industry. We must retain our strong and viable steel industry because our automotive, defence, renewable and construction sectors depend on it. The next Labour Government will work with, not in opposition to, our steel trade unions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) said, we will build a bridge—not a cliff edge—to a just environmental transition using a blend of technologies. We will not leave anyone behind. We saw what Margaret Thatcher did to our miners in the ’80s. That will not happen on our watch.
Decarbonisation cannot and should not mean deindustrialisation, as we know that that increases costs and pushes the environmental burden on to developing countries. With a Labour Government in Westminster working together with a Welsh Labour Government in the Senedd, we will ensure that steel production continues to play a key role in the growth and prosperity of Wales, for our economy and our people.