Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, I thank my right hon. Friend for her constructive engagement with the Department. I pay tribute to her school leaders and local authority for everything they are doing. I am happy to give her the reassurance, as the Chancellor has already said, that new funding will be provided to schools to deal with this issue. To ensure that we can get through this as quickly as possible for my right hon. Friend’s constituents and parents—and, indeed, everyone else’s—the Department for Education is in the process of increasing the number of dedicated caseworkers from 50 to 80. We have 35 project directors regionally on the ground to support, and we have more than doubled the number of survey firms, so that we can rapidly over the next few weeks fully assess all the relevant schools and have a mitigation plan in place.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Q10. Steel- workers in my constituency have watched in frustration as other Governments have pumped investment into decarbonisation while successive Tory Governments have sat on their hands. When will the Prime Minister finally conclude the talks with Tata Steel? Can he guarantee that level of investment will match what other European Governments are doing on decarbonisation? And will he guarantee that the conclusion will be based on serious engagement, comprehensively with the steel unions?

[The Prime Minister]

Steel is absolutely vital to the UK. This matter is of course of interest to the hon. Gentleman, but I have also discussed it extensively with my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft), and that is because the industry supports local jobs and economic growth. Conversations with specific companies, such as Tata, are ongoing, but they are understandably commercially sensitive. We share the ambition of securing a decarbonised, sustainable and competitive future for the industry in this country. In the meantime, we are supporting the sector with our energy-intensive industries exemption, which provides discounted energy bills. We also have the industrial energy transformation fund, which supports steel companies with their energy bills and the transition through capital to a greener future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, and I think the whole House should be proud of the fact that the UK still produces more offshore wind—[Interruption.] Not hot air, but energy for the people of this country. It is clean, green energy produced off Cleethorpes in the North sea, and we are going to be massively increasing the volume of that output.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Q6. A thriving steel industry is the foundation of a more productive and resilient Britain, yet bickering between the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is blocking the chance to tackle the sky-high energy prices that our steelmakers have been facing since long before the current price spikes. With the pathway to net zero being dependent on steel firms using more electricity, not less, will the Prime Minister urge his colleagues around the Cabinet table to put in place a wholesale energy price cap, along with long overdue reductions in network connection costs? COP will not work without a cap.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point about the high energy costs for energy-intensive industries, and that is why we have abated them with about £2 billion since 2013. The answer is to do what we are doing, which is to make up the long-term baseload needs of this economy by investing in nuclear, as I am afraid Labour failed to do in its 13 lost years, and in renewables.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Here, it really is worth understanding exactly what this single market means: it means that a financial services company based in the UK effectively has a passport to trade in 27 other EU countries. If we are to leave, and if we leave the single market, we lose that passport right, so, by definition, many of the firms would have to relocate at least some of their staff to another European Union country. HSBC has said it would have to scrap 1,000 jobs. JPMorgan said it would have to scrap 4,000 jobs. Lloyd’s came out and said that many jobs in insurance would be under threat. This is a concrete example of why the single market matters. I would make the point—because this does not just affect my hon. Friend’s constituency—that two thirds of the jobs in financial services are outside London, and this accounts for 7% of our economy, so when experts warn of effects on jobs, growth and livelihoods in our country, this is a classic example of why they are right to make that case.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Q13. Does the Prime Minister agree that a vote to leave on 23 June would be a hammer blow for the British steel industry? Will he agree to meet me to discuss a number of the decisions being made in the context of the Tata sale process—imminent decisions that will have a huge impact on thousands of jobs in my constituency and right across the country?

[The Prime Minister]

I am working very closely with the hon. Gentleman, as is my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary, to help do everything we can to secure a future for Tata Steel. The sales process is progressing, and that is encouraging. I would say that, yes, for steel, we are better off inside the European Union, because together as 28 countries, we are far better able to stand up to the Chinese or, indeed, the Americans over dumped steel. Where we put in place those dumping tariffs, you can see 95%, 98%, and 99% reductions in the quantity of Chinese steel in those categories being imported into the EU. We still face a very difficult situation—there is still massive overcapacity —but we are definitely, for the steel industry, better off as part of this organisation, fighting for British steelworkers’ jobs.