Tom Blenkinsop
Main Page: Tom Blenkinsop (Labour - Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)UK Steel Industry
Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts
Sajid Javid
I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that when there are job losses and the Government can help, of course they must do so.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Sajid Javid
I will plough on, but I will give way in a moment. I am about to speak about Redcar, and I know that the hon. Gentleman is interested in that as well. We have committed up to £80 million to helping people affected by SSI’s closure. That includes more than £16 million to help local firms to employ former SSI workers, and a further £16 million to support firms in the SSI supply chain and the wider Tees valley. Millions more are paying for retraining at local colleges. For example, there was a £1.7 million package to help former SSI apprentices to remain in employment, education or training.
Tom Blenkinsop
The Secretary of State said that the Government would do everything possible for the communities and people affected. As he knows, on the day of the liquidation at Redcar, he announced an £80 million total package—
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
It is £90 million.
Tom Blenkinsop
Oh, is it £90 million now? We have heard previously, from that Dispatch Box—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Shush, junior Minister. We do not need you to burble from a sedentary position. Be quiet! Your burbling is not required. Learn it. I have told you so many times; try to get the message.
Tom Blenkinsop
Not so long ago, at that Dispatch Box, the Secretary of State changed the figure to £50 million. Moneys on top of that have only been acquired because the Community trade union claimed a protective award from the tribunal to ensure that the workforce got what they were entitled to. The Government could have fast-tracked that some seven months ago.
Sajid Javid
I thought I heard the hon. Gentleman say “up to £90 million”. What we have always said is “up to £80 million”, and that has not changed. I agree that there is a long way to go, but so far, in respect of Redcar, nearly 700 jobs have been created, safeguarded or supported, and only a quarter of the more than 2,000 workers at SSI were claiming jobseeker’s allowance at the end of February.
Sajid Javid
Not now.
The action taken on tariffs, energy costs and procurement has sent a powerful message to investors around the world that the British Government are standing up for UK steel. That commitment is not new; I have been working with the steel industry from my very first day as Business Secretary, long before the current crisis made it on to the front pages. As I told the House yesterday, Tata contacted me several weeks ago to warn that it planned to sell parts of its strip business and to close its Port Talbot site immediately. Thanks to the groundwork laid by my team and colleagues over the past year, we were able to secure a reprieve while a buyer is found. I am leading the Government’s efforts to help to find a buyer for the strip business, and we will update the House on progress as soon as possible.
When that buyer is found, the Government stand ready, as I have said, to support it in any way we can to help to get the deal done. We have already set out some of the ways in which we can help. It would not be prudent to go into the detail, but the goal is to find a commercial buyer, with the Government helping to secure that transaction and a long-term, viable future for the business.
Tom Blenkinsop
I understand where the Secretary of State is coming from but, taking a broader view of co-investment, one option is R and D. The steel sector does not have Catapult status. Will the Secretary of State look at that as a potential route for co-investment in the steel sector, particularly in respect of organisations such as the Materials Processing Institute, to get an R and D link with our domestic steel industry?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. He will know that Catapult centres are a partnership between Government, business and academia. If that can help the steel sector, I am more than happy to look into it if a proposal comes forward.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) on securing this debate; I appreciate your discretion in permitting it under Standing Order No. 24, Mr Speaker. I will speak briefly from the SNP Front Bench, to allow colleagues from steel communities both in Scotland and in England and Wales to contribute to this short debate.
Yesterday, the Business Secretary tried to dig himself out of the hole he had dug by claiming credit for the news that Tata may have found a buyer for the Scunthorpe plant. He told us that this Government had done everything they could for the steel industry and that workers in England and Wales, with their jobs on the line, should be grateful to the Tories. It is welcome news that Tata appears to have found a buyer for its operations in Scunthorpe, and I hope that buyers can be found for Port Talbot and other sites. If the Government have been involved in the deal, I commend that, but I am concerned at reports of a possible erosion of workers’ terms and conditions as part of the deal. Is the Business Secretary aware of that? If he had discussions with Greybull Capital, did the changes come up? Will he now make representations to it on that matter?
I am also keen to probe a bit further the Business Secretary’s apparent flirtation with direct UK Government investment and the potential co-ownership of steel sites, including Port Talbot. He described it as co-investment in “commercial terms”. Perhaps he could clarify that, because it was as clear as mud yesterday and left more questions than answers. Indeed, it appears that this morning No. 10 was briefing against his flirtation, saying that nationalisation is not the answer. How unco-ordinated and shambolic!
Tom Blenkinsop
On what the hon. Gentleman said about terms and conditions, that ends up going to ballot, after being negotiated with lay reps on site, including those at Skinningrove in my constituency. The reductions in terms and conditions and the pension contributions are for 12 months only. In collective bargaining that is usually called a short-term working agreement, and I have negotiated those many times in order to save sites. It is also an industrial matter; it is not really a political matter for this place to discuss.
Neil Gray
I take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention in the spirit in which it was clearly given.
As I said yesterday, the fact that the Business Secretary was literally on the other side of the world at the height of this crisis two weeks ago when Tata made the announcement is a perfect metaphor for the Tory approach to the steel industry. Yesterday, I believe, was the first time this Government have proactively engaged with the House on the steel issue, and even that was after a shambolic recess, when there were calls for a recall of Parliament. On every other occasion I have been involved in discussions—certainly on the vast majority of occasions when steel has been discussed in this House—it has been because the Government have been dragged here by Opposition parties, as they have been again today. It is clear that the Government have been comfortably behind the curve on the steel crisis.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
This is not just about the obvious news stories about Port Talbot or the strip industry; it involves all Tata sites, including Aldwarke, Thrybergh, Stocksbridge, Shotton, Llanwern, Orb, Corby and Hartlepool; this is a UK steel crisis.
I reiterate that Tata has to behave like a responsible seller, and we need to remind it of its antics in 2010, when Kirby Adams, the then chief executive of Tata in Europe, tried to use skulduggery to shut Redcar. We solved that problem, but it took more than two years—two years in which there was not one hard redundancy. We need to remind Tata of its previous behaviour and not see it happen again.
British steel is not a basket case, a failed industry or a sunset industry; it is a very successful industry. We had evidence of that recently, when Liberty Steel bought Dalzell and Clydebridge—integral parts of any programme for Trident renewal. Teesside Beam Mill, Skinningrove, Scunthorpe, York, Blaydon and, indeed, Hayange in France, which is part of the long products division sold off to Greybull, are another success story of assets that investors want to buy into. They also demonstrate the European aspect of the previous Corus-British Steel envelope, and we still have sites in IJmuiden and Hayange.
British steel has always relied for its totemic name on its quality and its research and development. Places such as the Materials Processing Institute in Teesside at the old labs at Grangetown, as well as the research and development capacity in Rotherham and Sheffield, when linked with blast furnaces and electric arc furnaces, gives us the ability to control the destiny of metallurgy in our nation. That means we can innovate and create new products. That must be remembered.
I am interested in the notion of co-investment, whether that is in cash terms, or whether it is about an equity stake, a loan, R and D or, more importantly, Government policy. If we are to have a real discussion in this place, we have to look at the different options for co-investment. That is not about the individual commercial parties that may be interested in purchasing, but about putting ideas on the table so that we can actually plan an industrial strategy, because we have not done that in the last five years.
Let us take the issue of Chinese dumping. This is a new phenomenon; it has been going on for four and a half years. Before that, it was not happening. The circumstances have changed, and that is why the Government have to change the way they behave on the lesser duty rule and other legislation. There are no precedents, and that is why we cannot stick to rigid dogma, or even analytical argument around World Trade Organisation rules. On co-investment, I have to question whether we are properly looking at issues such as shale gas, and whether parties are being honest about the policy on that, because we are talking about gas-intensive industries.
On carbon capture and storage, the Government have to come clean. They have pulled the rug from under energy-intensive industries on carbon capture and storage. How will they maintain energy-intensive industries—whether it is chemical processing, shale, steel, light manufacturing, glass, cement or bricks—without a proper strategy on carbon? Taxes can be implemented under the EU emissions trading scheme or unilaterally, by bringing in the carbon price floor. They did that in the Budget some years ago, and they promised to give compensation. However, they did not calculate that if they wanted to compensate people for their own unilateral British tax, they could do so only via the European Union. They had not done the requisite work; they looked at the margins that a Treasury civil servant brought forward and just applied a rule, and they are now reaping the consequences of that.
Ultimately, Port Talbot, the strip and every single other site need time. In 2010, Redcar was saved over two years; SSI had six weeks and fell. We have to give British Tata sites time so that they can be saved. We need proper definitions of co-investment for the community to discuss.
Richard Fuller
The hon. Gentleman is talking a lot of sense. On the issue of time and co-investment, the Government could provide a bridging loan that extends beyond the period for which Tata is prepared to subsidise the steelworks, until a future buyer is found. Is that the sort of co-investment that the hon. Gentleman has in mind?
Tom Blenkinsop
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for giving me some more time. I really appreciate his comment.
Continued production is another pillar. If we are to save these sites, production has to be continuous or skills will be lost. In Redcar in 2010, the then regional development agency, One North East, along with Government agencies in Whitehall, provided a £60 million package. That came from RDA and central Government budgets. It retained people in the area on training courses while we—I was a union officer at the time—negotiated with other parties, such as Marcegaglia, Dongkuk and SSI, to get that site bought. It is vital to look at continuous production, time and other elements of co-investment, not just the cash element.