UK Steel Industry

Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Commons Chamber

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

Speaking as chairman of the all-party steel group, I would like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) on securing this vital and timely debate.

I would like to say thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker, but frankly, in view of the impending problems that are putting the steel industry on a cliff edge, I am sick of having to be called to participate in questions or debate about the industry. I am also angry about today’s comments from the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), who is responsible for the northern powerhouse. He referred to Labour Members as “showboating” on this issue.

I did not want to start in that way, because I have a lot of respect for the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise. While she has been a Minister, she has accelerated the process and the changes that are vital for the steel industry. However, I find the comments from that Under-Secretary to be truly reprehensible, and I am having to control my anger towards an MP who is supposed to represent my community and the people from my area. I will say this, however. The Minister opposite—I have just commended her—represents a great step in the right direction. Members across the Chamber can rally around her; she can be our champion against other Ministers in the chambers of power to fight for, rally and stand up for the case for steel.

People from different communities, trade unions such as Unite and GMB are present in the Galleries, including Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of Community, and Paul Warren, the multi-union chair at SSI Redcar. Those people are looking to us for solutions. They need us to help deliver those solutions for them.

As I said, I am sick of having to talk about this issue. I have gone through—not just today, but earlier—the detailed arguments over and over again. I have raised them at Prime Minister’s questions over and over again. Only last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) raised the issue of the necessity for a steel summit. My colleague in the all-party group and its vice-chair, the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), has raised it again today and in questions to the Department of Energy and Climate Change and fastidiously in all questions. What we want to see now is action.

We can base our argument today on an example from our local community in Teesside. The site at Redcar—the very site mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar earlier—has been an industrial miracle on Teesside, with the resurrection of the largest blast furnace in Britain, the second largest in Europe. In my opinion, that should have been a rallying-call for any Government—the fact that something of such great significance could be brought back again through the co-operative work of the men and women on site, the management and the then current owners and then the wanted owners. There was a plan; there was a desire; there was a will to fight and save the heart of a community.

I know that the workforce and the trade union movement want that now. We MPs want that now. But do the Government want it? That is the question. Do they really want it? It is now about political will—the next stage. We have talked about Europe and about ignoring or interpreting the European convention. Fine, but if there is political will, it will be possible to get there. That is the stage we are at now. We cannot afford to keep going over the arguments, which we all know are the right ones. What we need now is action.

On 15 April 2012, what I would describe as a small miracle took place. An 11-year-old boy fired up Britain’s largest blast furnace, after it had been mothballed for two years. Within a matter of days, steel slabs began rolling off the production line. Steelmaking had, against all the odds, returned to Teesside. People’s livelihoods had been restored and an opportunity to carry on the tradition of steelmaking had been created for future generations. That boy was Wills Waterfield, son of Geoff Waterfield, a member of the Community trade union and chair of the multi-union committee, who had been instrumental in the Save our Steel campaign, following the announcement by Tata Steel to mothball the site in 2009 after the loss of a large contract. He, alongside Stevie Redmond, Paul Warren, Roy Rickhuss, Michael Leigh and many others, made that happen.

Since SSI bought the site and relit the furnace in 2012, I think it is fair to say that the journey to where we are now has been a bumpy one. Indeed, we find ourselves almost on a cliff edge. That is why today’s debate is so crucial. However, I praise SSI for the initial commitment and determination it showed to bring steelmaking back to Teesside. That grit must endure over what will be an extremely difficult few weeks for the company. During that time, SSI must realise that the workers at the site are not so naive that they do not understand the difficulty in which the company finds itself. It is essential for SSI to respect that and to maintain a clear and honest dialogue with the workers and trade unions on the site. I believe there is a role for the Government to play in ensuring that talks take place and that they continue. It is a profound role.

The Minister is meeting me, my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar and the unions representing the workforce later today. I think we need to explore not just what we have already talked about, but anything that is potentially helpful to the situation. I know the Minister will take that back to her superiors in the Government. We all continue and I continue to champion our vital industry, which I have done for my home area since first elected in 2010—I was re-elected a few months ago.

We are highlighting the issues facing the steelworks in Redcar and Skinningrove in my constituency, which is part of the long products division at Tata, and in the UK as a whole. The issues range from high energy prices to the impact of dumping in the EU by China and many others—and we know all these arguments very well. With each debate, each parliamentary question, each question at Prime Minister’s questions, I am greeted with warm words from whoever is at the Dispatch Box, but it is now clear that words are not enough. They need to be turned into action. That was needed then, and is even more needed now.

I would like the Minister to remind her Prime Minister of the necessity for the meeting that he promised me yesterday in Prime Minister’s questions. I think the matter demands his attention. When we raised these issues with him before—at Prime Minister’s questions and in other debates—he was quite keen for his Government to take the praise for SSI’s purchasing and resurrection of the Teesside Cast Products works in Redcar. Now, however, I do not know. I have to be honest: I do not see the same level of commitment or will as there was before. The Prime Minister was all too keen to take the praise for work that—I am being honest here—other people did, but is not keen to do the work now when he can do something.

I see the prospect of 2,000 hard-working people losing their livelihoods at Redcar. If that does not spur the Government into action immediately, I can only despair. I say 2,000 people, but we are really talking about 6,000 to 10,000 jobs in the downstream supply chain in companies around the area and the port. This is the heart of our local economy; it is a huge chunk of Teesside gross domestic product. More than that, it is our culture and tradition. It is the very identity of who we are, where we come from and the pride we take in ourselves and in our parents and grandparents before us. If we cannot now see the necessity of defending that industry, and that heritage and that history, I do not know why, but I do know this Minister. I have faith in her, and I want her to prove that my faith is justified.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry]

I agree, but as the hon. Gentleman also knows there are very strict state aid rules. We could have a debate about whether this country should impose them at a higher, gold-plated level compared with other countries. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has said, “Everybody else tears up the rules and so should we”, but I do not agree, because we cannot complain about other people breaking state aid rules if we are doing it ourselves. I would much rather go to the European Union with clean hands so that we can say, “We’re abiding by the rules, so now you have to abide by them, too.”

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) is not in her place, but she made demands of the Government. I hope she will forgive me, but I do not think she is aware of what the state aid rules are: they expressly prohibit the Government from giving any money to rescue and restructure a steel company in difficulty. EU state aid rules for steel permit support only for research and development, environmental protection and training, and only then within specified limits.

The hon. Members for Redcar and for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland talked about what happened to the SSI plant when it was under the ownership of Tata and mothballed back in 2009-10. I will be corrected if I am wrong, but as I understand it that process was not supported by Government aid. I absolutely pay tribute to the unions, the workforce and everybody involved, including the local Members of Parliament and, no doubt, local councillors, who came together to work out that package, but I understand that the state aid rules forbade the Government from giving aid.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

To provide some context, at that time trade unions—with Community in the lead—alongside other helpful partners in the industry, were looking at potential buyers, such as Dongkuk, Marcegaglia and SSI, so that was not the issue. We had a destination to go to, but we needed a bridging gap. The Government provided £60 million of support funding to make sure that there was a taskforce for the area. The situation is now different, but we can talk about that in private.

[Anna Soubry]

I think we are agreed because this has affected Governments of all colours—or rather, of both colours. In all seriousness, the rules on state aid are very strict. I take the view that we should not blatantly breach those rules, because we cannot hold to account other countries that breach them, blatantly or otherwise, if we are guilty of doing the same.