Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Chris Huhne

Thursday 24th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Huhne]

My hon. Friend should be aware that we are not providing underwriting funds or soft loans. In the United States, for example, the Obama Administration are proceeding with $35 billion of soft loans for the nuclear industry, but we have explicitly said that new nuclear will be built here without public subsidy. We have also said that, as Lord Stern pointed out, climate change is the greatest market failure of all time. We have to offset that market failure with a clear signal to the markets, whether through the emissions trading scheme or the carbon floor price, that low carbon is here to stay and we must accelerate it.

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

Yesterday, in response to the Budget, Karl-Ulrich Köhler, chief executive officer of Tata Steel Europe, said that

“the introduction of the Carbon Floor Price…represents a potentially severe blow to the sustainability of UK steelmaking.”

Does the Secretary of State believe that the CFP announced yesterday is the type of state intervention that is good for British steel making on Teesside?