Steel Industry

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to Roy Rickhuss, General Secretary of Community trade union, who is in the Public Gallery. He has led steelworkers through a very dark time with dignity, great class and humour. Also in the Public Gallery are more than 40 steelworkers from across the UK, who have come here today to talk to MPs and to demonstrate their desire to see a British steel industry.

My first small point is about Chinese dumping. Yes, it is a problem, and the quality of the steel that is being dumped is poor both environmentally and on health and safety grounds, but it will get better. We can stop it now; there are provisions within the European Union on which we should now act, but the quality of Chinese steel will get better, and what do we do then? The real issue is whether we want a British steel industry. It is more about political will than it is about any organisation, institution or legislation. Do we want a British steel industry? British steel is as British as roast beef or the Union Jack; it is fundamental to our national identity.

Let us look at steel in relation to our country’s history, how we define ourselves as defenders of democracy and how we defeated fascism. It was steelworks up and down the length and breadth of this country that ensured that we could arm ourselves in those struggles. That is a story that we heard not from the men on site, but, in large part, from the women working in the industry. It is an often untold story. The arguments about the carbon price floor, energy prices, Chinese dumping and the current exchange rate are all well versed and well made.

What I wish to focus on in Teesside is the future. We are an area that can attract not just steel but other energy-intensive industries. If the Government act in the immediate and medium term to bring about those five industrial asks to defend a British steel industry, we in Teesside can buoy that up even more.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

On those five asks, particularly around anti-dumping and state aid, does my hon. Friend agree that the principle that should now be applied is shoot first and answer questions later? Is it not time that we started looking at unilateral action, as we are now dealing with a crisis.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment and for reiterating a quote from the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), who made exactly that point in a previous debate.

Before I get to business rates, the issues around Teesside and why SSI no longer exists, let me say that, in Teesside, we are next to the Durham coalfield, under the North sea, which could be gasified. Shale gas is coming to this country from America only because America does not have the capacity to retain it. America will stop exporting gas to this nation in five to 10 years, so we need our own gas supply. When we set that up, we need to sequestrate that gas to provide cheap energy and to remove the threat from green taxes. If we do that, we would create a renaissance of industry on Teesside and across the UK.

In relation to taxation on industry—quite apart from CPF, which is a British tax inflicted on its own industry—there are 17 English and Welsh sites that have business rate values of more than £1 million, 15 of which have outstanding rate relief applications still not answered. Since 2010, business rates for the steel sector have increased by 19% in England. Not one steel site has seen any rate relief yet. Let us compare that to the retail sector, which, in this financial year alone, has received £1.8 billion in rate relief. That is madness. That rate relief is paid for by the taxes of a steel industry that we are killing via the CPF and the lack of relief in business rates.

On the important matter of SSI, I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions. How long has the insolvency unit been monitoring what was happening in Redcar? She disclosed to me on the day of liquidation that it had been monitoring the situation for “many months”. Indeed, it anticipated that SSI, alongside other companies dealing with long products such as Caparo and Tata in Dalzell, Clydebridge and Scunthorpe, would “pop” in November. What were the red flags? Were they pensions, the lack of student loans being paid, liabilities—[Interruption.] Exactly, the Minister knew all of this, but when? At what point did it all start? What we need to know is whether it could have been pre-empted.