Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Sarah Jones and Jim Shannon(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Sarah Jones
I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment and commend the work that he is doing in his constituency. Low carbon technology will of course play a critical role in our future, from hydrogen to carbon capture and to renewable energy. I am pleased that, in the Budget, we saw the funding of 11 hydrogen projects, which will drive jobs and growth. I am really keen to talk to him about his plans for Peterborough becoming the King’s Cross for a hydrogen network and applaud the work that is going on in his constituency around green jobs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Sarah Jones and Jim Shannon(3 weeks ago)
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Sarah Jones
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend often and regularly, as we do, to talk about these matters. Of course, the offshore wind supply chain is incredibly important. We have two big announcements to that end, which she mentioned, in relation to Orsted and Greenvolt, and there is much more that we can do through the industrial strategy to keep that area growing.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
What discussions have there been with Invest NI in relation to supporting small Northern Ireland businesses in the digital evolution, to help them adapt and make improvements with digital technology to ensure the smooth running of their businesses?
Steel Industry
Debate between Sarah Jones and Jim Shannon(1 month ago)
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Sarah Jones
The hon. Gentleman will understand that I am not in a position to define what commercial companies do. While we are trying to do what we can, I cannot do anything other than say that we are working incredibly hard with the owners to ensure that we get to a point that we want to get to.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned Harland and Wolff, and the same situation is true there. We are working hard to understand the situation and we are hoping for a resolution relatively soon.
Jim Shannon
Will the Minister be generous and kind enough to let us know about the situation now and what she hopes progress will be over the next few weeks, if she does not mind?
Sarah Jones
The process of selling the company is going through. That is a market situation, being dealt with in that way, so Government are not providing funding or anything such as that at this point. We are allowing the process to take its course, but we are obviously talking to all parties to do what we can to ensure that we get the right outcome. I have been talking to politicians from all four of the Harland and Wolff sites, as can be imagined, and there is uncertainty in each of those areas, whether that is in Scotland, Devon or Belfast. We are working hard to ensure the right outcome.
To close my remarks, in steel, not to mention the wider economy, the inheritance of this Government from the previous Government was nothing short of a travesty. We had more than a decade of lurching from crisis to crisis, with no clear plan to safeguard the future of a competitive domestic steel industry. This Government are determined to change that, making the steel industry in this country fit for the future so that it is not left behind in a decarbonised world.
The Government are on the side of Britain’s thousands of steelworkers. We have not talked about the other parts of the country where we also have steel production. Marcegaglia, which is in Sheffield, announced a couple of weeks ago that it is investing £50 million in a new electric arc furnace in Sheffield, so we have incumbents here in the UK that are doing well.
The Government are determined to ensure the future of British steel. We are on the side of Britain’s thousands of steelworkers and we are working closely with our trade unions, experts and others to develop our steel strategy. We believe that steel will forge our future, not just our past, and I look forward to working with all hon. Members in this place to develop a steel strategy that sets us up for the next 10, 15 or 20 years to come.
UK Steel Manufacturing
Debate between Sarah Jones and Jim Shannon(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend, who is an expert in this area and with whom I have talked many times, will know that I agree with him. We need to introduce new entrants into the market, to stimulate the market and to encourage competition. The previous Government had a hands-off approach until an industry was about to collapse, and then they suddenly had to intervene with hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money. That was completely the wrong approach. As it turns out, the hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money that the Government put aside for Port Talbot came out of their reserves, which they spent three times over and was not real money. This will be real money. We will develop a proper steel strategy, and I very much look forward to working with my hon. Friend on devising it.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her answers. Whether we like it or not, we have to deal with the reality before us. She may be aware that KME Steelworks in Lisburn has reduced costs and its carbon footprint by introducing a new, on-site nitrogen generation system. What financial aid is available to other companies to help to meet their environmental goals when they are facing costs like never before and there is pressure on the industry?
Sarah Jones
I thank the hon. Member for that question. We need to be technology agnostic and look at what the new industries, the new developments and the new research are telling us. We are doing that, which means some companies taking risks, with the Government needing to intervene when we see a new market in need of support. We will have that approach in Government. We are technology agnostic—we need to look at what will work, what will make our country thrive, and also what other countries are doing.
Aerospace Industry: Northern Ireland
Debate between Sarah Jones and Jim Shannon(4 months ago)
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Sarah Jones
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention and for adding to my reading list, which is already quite substantial, as I am sure he can imagine. Our wonderful civil servants are keeping us very busy with all the things that we need to read, but, indeed, I will look at that report, as he suggests, and am happy to do so.
Delivering an industrial strategy is at the centre of the Government’s growth mission alongside our goal of becoming a clean energy superpower. We want to create the right conditions for the green industries of the future to flourish, enabling those key sectors not only to transform the UK economy, but to become world leaders in their own right.
Aerospace is crucial to this growth mission, with investment in research and development key to delivering the next generation aircraft for sustainable flight. That is why I am very much looking forward to attending the Farnborough International Airshow tomorrow for the first time as a Minister. I will be meeting UK aerospace companies and see for myself the vast array of pioneering products and services being sold across the globe. I am hoping to see all the partners involved in the Spirit discussions tomorrow and to talk to them about this topic.
Jim Shannon
I understand that there is a tent at the Farnborough show that has a Northern Ireland section. I am sure that the Minister will attend that show, and have a chance to interact with the companies there. Sometimes people say that if Ministers go there, they get them for about 15 minutes. I suggest that she spends a wee bit longer there.
Sarah Jones
I am delighted that the hon. Member has intervened in his own Adjournment debate. I will be there at the UK stand tomorrow, and we will see what Northern Ireland has on display. I will spend as much time there as I can. I am there for the whole day, so I hope that I will spend some good time there.
As Members will be well aware, Northern Ireland has a long and impressive history in the aerospace industry. This Government are in lockstep with the sector’s ambitions to grow, compete on the world stage, and ease the transition to net zero flight. Today, the aerospace sector supports nearly 240,000 jobs, with almost half of those employees directly employed by aerospace companies. Some 5,000 of them are in Northern Ireland. The sector as a whole is worth some £30 billion. Despite all the achievements, we recognise that the past years have been challenging for the sector, with the chaos and uncertainty of the previous Government, and the global shocks of covid, the war in Ukraine and the disruption in the Red sea. We know that the impact of those issues persists.