Steel Industry
Debate between Sajid Javid and Mark Spencer
Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
I know that the Secretary of State and the Business Minister will do all they can to secure as many jobs as possible and to make sure that the pension scheme pays out to as many as possible, but will he assure us that whatever deal is done, it will be sustainable and we will not be back here in two years’ time facing the same challenges in the steel industry?
Sajid Javid
I can assure my hon. Friend that no deal has been done. This consultation is about exploring options that have been brought to us by the trustees, and its right that we look at that. As a further assurance, I can tell him that the regulator would have to be involved, as well as a number of other safeguards, if we went ahead.
UK Steel Industry
Debate between Sajid Javid and Mark Spencer(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Sajid Javid
I will come to that in a moment. Under the lesser duty rule, if the dumping margin is 50%, but a duty of 30% is sufficient to remove the harm to industry from that dumping, then the duty is set at 30%. The tariffs recently imposed on Chinese rebar were indeed too low. I am continuing to raise the issue in my regular discussions with Brussels, as I did only last week when I met the EU Trade Commissioner in London.
Mark Spencer
Before my right hon. Friend makes any more progress, it is worth putting on the record the £50 million of support that he and the Minister have already put in place. Will he bring us up to speed on where the negotiations with the EU stand and what sort of timescale he is looking at?
Sajid Javid
I thank my hon. Friend for reminding us of that. As I progress, I will answer his question.
Steel Industry
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Sajid Javid
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, for taking part in the steel summit on Friday, and for the constructive way in which she has helped workers in her constituency and highlighted wider issues around the steel sector.
I know the hon. Lady welcomes the support we have already provided. I am happy to repeat that at the moment the advice is that the £80 million of support for Redcar workers and their families who are affected by this will go a long way to help the local community and local economy, but if more is required and the taskforce comes forward with a proposal, we will look at that.
On employer contributions to pension plans, we are happy to try to help in any way we can. I know the hon. Lady has provided some information on this and I think there is more coming. We will take a close look at that.
Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for the efforts he is making along with the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise. Can he give us an idea of the size and scale of Government procurement of UK steel over the coming months and how rapidly that will be rolled out?
Sajid Javid
The Government have already identified in their national infrastructure pipeline over 500 major infrastructure projects, some of them very large, such as HS2. We are the first country in the EU to change the rules on procurement to allow us to take social and environmental issues into account, which I think ultimately gives us more flexibility. We can start to take immediate advantage of that, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General will help to take that forward.