Steel Industry

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the steel industry.

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a member of the Community trade union. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) for co-sponsoring the debate, which is much needed to get the steel industry crisis back on the national agenda.

The steel industry is not a dead or dying industry. That is something I and colleagues here today have repeated throughout the crisis and prior to it. I know everyone here understands the importance of the industry, but some confusion persists, so I hope colleagues will understand if I reiterate why the steel industry is particularly significant to the UK.

Fundamentally, steel is a strategic and foundational industry. If the Government want to rebalance the economy away from London and to build our manufacturing sector, they simply must support the steel sector. The products of our steel industry supply the booming automotive manufacturing industry and the aerospace manufacturing industry, among others. A successful steel industry helps those industries and a weak one damages them. As well as being the foundation for other industries, steel is strategically important because it allows us to retain the capacity to build infrastructure projects, from Trident to transport to energy. It means our security, our ability to compete and our ability to keep the lights on are not dependent on other countries.

As an aside, look at the problems the French Government are having in building the Flamanville EPR nuclear reactor. In the summer, France’s nuclear safety authority found weaknesses in what I believe is Japanese-made steel in the reactor, which further delayed the project and raised safety concerns. British steel, such as that made at the main competitor to that manufacturer, Sheffield Forgemasters, is more reliable, and I hope it will be used in the similar Hinkley Point C EPR reactors. That is a simple example of the importance of using high-quality steel for infrastructure and why choosing to use British steel for such projects is not just the patriotic choice, but the best choice.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that if we really are concerned about taking back control, we need control of our steel industry, so that our infrastructure is built with UK steel?

[Tom Blenkinsop]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. There have been warm and welcome words from the Government about an industrial strategy. The Opposition have been talking about that for the past six years, but be that as it may, the Government are there and we want to work with them over the next few months to form that industrial strategy. There are immediate issues that need to be resolved, hopefully in the autumn statement, and there are further long-term issues in relation to an industrial strategy, how we form that strategy by sector and how the steel sector needs specific treatment in order to go forward.

The other aspect of the steel industry’s significance is the jobs it provides, the communities it forms and has formed, and the culture of which I am proudly a part. More than 30,000 people work in the steel industry, from watermen to control panel engineers and from craft workers to lab technicians. What is important is not only the numbers but where in the country those jobs are, because as well as adjusting the mix of our economy to include more manufacturing, a long-term aspiration of successive Governments has been to rebalance the economy away from London. The UK steel industry supplies more than 10,000 jobs in Yorkshire and the Humber, 8,500 in Wales, 4,000 in the west midlands, 2,000 in my own region, the north-east, and at least 1,000 in Scotland. Those regions are desperate for jobs and investment, and they have been the worst hit by the decline in manufacturing and domestic industry.

Simply put, if the Prime Minister is serious about spreading opportunity around our nation, she cannot abandon the steel industry. Steelworkers across the UK are not asking for charity, merely for access to a level playing field on which to compete with steelmakers from across the world, but in a number of ways, UK steel is fighting an uphill battle. The trade tariffs that protect American steel producers from Chinese steel are many times those in place to protect British producers. Despite limited Government assistance, energy for British steel producers remains more expensive than for our European competitors, and Government-led infrastructure projects, most recently Trident, continue to use foreign-made steel instead of British alternatives.

Where our industry can compete and has been leading the world is in our people and our skills. It is difficult to estimate the value of the institutional knowledge and experience in Port Talbot, Stocksbridge, Skinningrove or Sheerness, but it has helped those communities to stay afloat and their steelworks to function. The Materials Processing Institute in Teesside is producing world-leading research, and has received visits from German, Slovak and Swedish Government representatives who wish to draw on our expertise in this country.

It is testament to the combination of those institutional skills, the experience of steel communities around the country and the cutting-edge research of institutes such as the MPI that the productivity of the steel industry has consistently improved over the last decades. It is for those reasons that the UK steel industry should be seen as an opportunity—a reservoir of potential—rather than, as it is sometimes called, a burden on a modern economy.

We should be wary of how quickly that reservoir can evaporate. A steel or metals industry cannot be created from scratch overnight. The average age of a steelworker is growing, and the current crisis means fewer young people are coming into the industry. Without a secure future, the skills developed over decades could be lost. Those skills are not important only for the steel industry. I recently met representatives from Metalysis—a company that uses an innovative process developed at Cambridge University to produce metal powders and alloys that will be vital for 3D printing—who emphasised to me the importance of those skills grown in the steel industry for their business. To allow that experience and research reservoir to dry up with the decline of the steel industry would not merely affect the future of steel in the UK, but would cut off our competitive advantage for the metals sector.

Rather than let that advantage disappear, we should build on that potential by creating a steel sector catapult and a metal materials strategy, through which knowledge can be shared, built upon and turned into results for British industry. I hope the Government will work with MPI and members of the all-party parliamentary group on steel and metal related industries to fashion a new bid for that catapult. That is something the Government could commit to today that would show that they are serious about the future of the industry. I hope the Minister will remark on that later.

Steel in the UK is not an odd nostalgia but a viable industry with a future. It does not need charity but access to a level playing field on which to compete. If given that access, it is reasonable to believe the industry could be the world leader it already is. There are immediate challenges, though. The five asks on energy costs, business rates, Chinese dumping and procurement have still not been fully delivered on by the Government, and they demand the Government’s immediate attention. They can be acted on now and the solutions announced in the autumn statement.

The drop in sterling and the change in global steel price is not a solid foundation on which to build the steel industry’s future. The Government must not believe that their short-term work is done. They must take action, with long-term milestones and with a long-term view, so that not only people in the House know where they stand, but investors in the industry know exactly what the 20 or 30-year view is, and associated industries that rely on steel know exactly what to expect.

Steel Industry

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Westminster Hall

[Tom Blenkinsop]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point; I want to come to that later. Indeed, I believe the European Parliament is voting tomorrow on whether or not to grant China MES. Ultimately, the European Commission will have its say later in the year, but the implications for energy-intensive industries—not only steel, but manufacturing per se—go way beyond what anyone has talked about in any depth. That has been ignored to a certain extent—or, rather, quietly allowed to go under the radar—but the consequences for British manufacturing are profound.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that we have seen some tremendous leadership from both the Community union, leading the trade unions, and UK Steel leading the employers? That leadership and inspiration should be matched by the Government in taking us forward and ensuring a bright future for steel, as well as a very good past.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning Community, which is my union and former employer. Community has shown the positive role that trade unions can perform in partnership with employers. Mutual co-operation between employees and employers is necessary in order to get an industry through a difficult period, whether through a short-time working agreement, negotiating pensions or trying to find buyers for a steel site. Community is an exemplar in the trade union movement—I would say that, as a present Community trade union member and a member for many years, but there is a lot that the union movement can learn from it.

UK Steel Industry

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Thursday 21st January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the pressures for the steel summit was the awful news of what happened in Redcar, which really focused minds.

To be fair to the Government, in many ways we have a good Minister. She puts her shoulder to the wheel and tries to move things forward. I am sure that the situation is as tough for her inside Government as it is for us outside, but one of the Opposition’s jobs is to push even harder from outside—that is our responsibility.

Let us look at the five asks. Things have been delivered on energy costs, although the Government promised delivery of the mitigations three years ago, so it took them three years. That is not a track record of fast delivery; on the other hand, it is welcome that that delivery has taken place. There is still more to do. The funding from the energy mitigation is still not immediately getting to the people it needs to reach, so that one has still not been forced through completely, although it is welcome and the Government’s movement on that should be recognised.

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

Beyond the five industrial asks, which my hon. Friend is going into, another issue is the timeline for Long Products. Before Christmas, in autumn last year, the chief executive of Tata Europe, Karl-Ulrich Köhler, put a specific timeline on when Tata would say whether it would own, or not, every single Long Products site—that includes Dalzell, Clydebridge, TBM, Skinningrove, and Scunthorpe and all the sections within—and that was April this year. What does my hon. Friend think that the Minister feels about the pressing timeline, as well as the five industrial asks?

[Nic Dakin]

That timeline is pressing and the Government will be as alert to it as everyone else is in the Chamber or, most importantly, among our constituents. It is good to remind us of the timeline, because it is there and the clock is ticking.

The second industrial ask is about supporting local content in major construction projects. Again, the Government are to be congratulated on making progress. Much stronger guidance is now in place, which has the potential to make real changes. I stress “has the potential” —we need to see the guidance driven through, so there is a job for Government to do: to force it through. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon said, this needs to be driven through Government and other contractor organisations, otherwise it will remain a nice bit of guidance sat on a shelf somewhere, which will be no good to anyone. Although we recognise that the Government have moved forward on that, they need to move further—the job is started, but not done. The energy costs job was started, but it took us three years to get it done, so we need to keep up the pressure and keep our shoulders to the wheel.

The next industrial ask is about business rates and finding a way of not penalising capital investment in energy-intensive—or any other—industries. The Government admit that they have kicked any review of business rates into the long grass, but the issue needs to be addressed urgently. Business rates in the UK are up to 10 times higher than in France or Germany, which is significantly anti-competitive.

Let me turn to the industrial ask about taking anti-dumping measures. As my hon. Friends have said, the Government have been slow to get behind the wheel and get good trade defence instruments in place. At the moment the concern in Europe is about the issue of a profit margin of 1.5%, because that is a dangerous line to pursue and would not be beneficial to steel producers in the UK or elsewhere in the EU. I hope the Minister will encourage the Secretary of State to phone Commissioner Malmström to make the UK’s position clear about the need to support anti-dumping. Perhaps he has already called her, in which case it would be positive to hear what the Minister can report.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon has already said much about the threat to the UK if market economy status for China is not handled properly. The UK needs to put itself in a leadership role in Europe. The Minister often shows leadership in the House of Commons on many issues, and she and her colleagues need to show that sort of leadership in Europe to ensure that the UK steel industry has a decent future.

Finally, support for research and development and environmental improvements is a big area of need. We need the Government to look at ways in which investment can be made so that the UK steel industry produces the right quality and type of steel to win the contracts of the future. That needs investment in R and D and in future skills, and that needs to happen now. We cannot wait until those opportunities are there; we need to be in a position to take advantage of them.

I hope the Government are looking at ways to make grants available or at using contra-cyclical loans or other imaginative ways to allow such investment to take place. Unless that happens, there will not be a UK steel industry in the future. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon said in his summing up, we need a steel strategy that takes those industrial asks into account. We have ticks in boxes that show that that has started, but we now need to move that forward and get it finished. That needs more time and effort from all of us in the Chamber, including the Minister.

Steel Industry

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Tom Blenkinsop]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment, because we met people from Celsa at a recent meeting of the all-party group for the steel and metal related industry, which I chair. They came to the meeting and were really instructive and helpful in giving us the calculations and statistics that affect their industry. I believe that their plant was built in 2006. It is practically a brand-new steelworks, with an electric arc furnace. They were telling us about the difficulties that they have been put in as a result not just of European policy, which I have set out, but of the Government’s own carbon tax policy. The carbon price floor has penalised UK industry above and beyond our EU competition. There is a twofold element. This is not just about the massive increases in foreign imports; we have penalised our own industry and undermined the march of the makers on our own doorstep. I am sure that Ministers who would have been here would have been able to listen to that fact. I shall say again that there is some great portent in why they cannot attend this debate today.

A further flaw in the system is its unresponsiveness to changes in the economy and individual company activities. We have the absurd situation in which EU allowances trade at under €6 a tonne because the recession has resulted in an over-supply of allowances, while companies such as SSI are short of allowances because they are expanding output. The system needs to be more flexible if it is to work for all.

In the Budget debate earlier this year, I welcomed the news that the Government intended to introduce relief against the rapidly rising costs of carbon levies, and the mitigation of the renewables obligation is a particularly good step forward. However, I do have concerns that have still not been addressed. It looks as if there will be a massive underspend in the support packages. In 2013-14, £35 million was provided for companies, and so far this year only 53 companies have received compensation: £41 million of EU ETS compensation and £6 million of carbon price support compensation.

The UK steel industry will continue to face considerable challenges in the interim, given that the national and international demand for steel is still at mid-financial crisis levels. Again, I can only urge the Minister to urge the Treasury to bring the compensation forward, so that the steel sector and other foundation industries do not have to wait.

Another issue that I would like to discuss is the threat to the UK steel industry from international imports and the over-saturation of markets with certain products. I am referring to non-EU imports of rebar. In 2010, non-EU sales of reinforcing bar equalled approximately 4% of the UK market share. Since then, non-EU rebar, mainly Chinese in origin, has surged to take a 37% market share. When combined with Turkish imports, non-EU imports moved to take 49% of the market in quarter 2 of 2014. People should bear in mind the fact that in May 2010 it is 4%, and in quarter 2 of 2014 it goes to 49%. That is a massive surge—a massive increase—in imported rebar steel. At the same time, the UK producers’ market share plummeted from a traditional level of about 60% to just 33% in quarter 2 of 2014.

That is a profound problem for the UK steel industry, to say the least. The cause is the slow-down in Chinese construction activity, which has prompted certain Chinese producers to seek new markets in which they can dump excess production, but it is also due to trading houses facilitating that explosion in imports to the UK market. They have come to the UK because they are already accredited under the British accreditation scheme to sell in far eastern markets, such as Hong Kong and Singapore, which use the same accreditation scheme.

A loss of sales of that magnitude is unsustainable in the longer term for the one remaining British producer of rebar, based in Cardiff in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty). There have been reports in the construction press that some of the Chinese bars already in the market fail to comply with the British standard. UK Steel has even taken the step of advising all UK fabricators and contractors to test Chinese bars before using them. Pressure must be placed on the European Commission to act against these dumped imports, and the Government must ensure that all substandard material is removed from the market.

I would like to discuss the steel market in more general terms. Unfortunately, although UK steel demand has risen this year, overseas producers are the main beneficiaries. As I said, imports in quarter 2 of 2014 took 63% of the market—the highest share ever. For most steel products, the bulk of imports come from other EU countries. It is clear that the UK steel industry is suffering from the twin problems of the rising value of sterling against the euro and continuing uncompetitive energy prices. Although there is little that the Government can do about the former, it demonstrates that the UK steel industry remains fragile and underlines the importance of the Government acting urgently on energy prices, which are within their control.

Energy prices are critical not only to the UK steel industry but to any future expansion. The Government’s analysis revealed that last year’s average industrial electricity prices for UK industrial consumers were the fifth highest in the EU15, including taxes, and 6.2% above the estimated median for that group. Those prices prompted a warning from UK manufacturers’ body EEF that UK electricity costs and taxes were pricing manufacturers out of the UK. Steel companies are among those hit hardest by the rising costs. Competitive energy prices and secure energy supplies are vital for the future of the steel sector in the UK.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate. He is making his point very well. Does he agree that if we are all committed, as we seem to be across all parties, to having a strong manufacturing base, foundation industries such as steel must be properly supported, particularly on energy prices, skills and procurement?

[Tom Blenkinsop]

My hon. Friend has been banging that drum since he was elected in May 2010. My fear is that we are reaching a critical point where not only the steel industry but all energy-intensive industries are begging for help. They are trying to compete in the world as best they can, with the best forms of technology, and they are driving costs down as much as they possibly can. However, when Government policies make it harder and harder for them to exist on UK soil, it is no surprise that there have been reconfigurations in the steel industry across the European market.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

17. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.

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

18. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.

Energy Intensive Industries

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) on securing this timely and important debate. The contributions so far have shown that this issue is important outside this place, for the communities that we serve and the future of our nation.

There has been a kind of renaissance in the cross-party consensus on the importance of manufacturing over the past few years. The current Government should share some of the congratulations on that renaissance, as should all politicians. However, when we look at how our energy intensive industries are being treated, it is ironic, because their treatment undermines that consensus. The hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) has drawn attention to many of the dichotomies that we need to act on in that regard.

Foundational industries such as steel, glass and chemicals are crucial to a modern, balanced economy, and very much dominate the industrial scene in the part of the world that I represent. In Scunthorpe, Tata Steel, the UK’s largest steel maker, has just announced 500 more job losses, after announcing 1,800 in May 2011, so the issue of jobs is a live one. What Tata has said is exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) reported earlier: a comparison shows that UK energy costs are 70% higher than in Germany, and 45% higher than in France.

For someone sat in Mumbai making decisions about where to place investments, those figures are going to have an impact. It is crucial to take urgent action to ensure that that impact is not negative for the UK. Furthermore, as Member after Member has said, if we displace industry from the UK to places that are less energy efficient and less carbon friendly, we will increase the global carbon impact. That would be negative not just for the UK, but for the globe.

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

The hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) spoke about the explosion of fracking in America leading to an increase in manufacturing there. My great fear is that the traditional gas markets in the middle east, particularly Qatar, will start making overtures to industry to move to the middle east to produce there, rather than wait for the west to import their gas.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which reminds us that we live in a global world with global decision makers and global impact. Tom Crotty, a director of INEOS, said:

“We are at a crisis point. We will not have an energy-intensive sector in this country in 20 years’ time”

if action is not taken. Karl Koehler, chief executive of Tata Steel’s European operations said:

“Our…manufacturing plants face electricity costs that are… 50 per cent higher than our key competitors in France and Germany…If the chancellor wants an industrial recovery and to rebalance the economy he must show real commitment to fair energy costs for foundation industries such as steel.”

The carbon floor tax is an interesting case study. It is a unilateral tax on manufacturing introduced by the coalition Government. They announced in 2010 that it would be introduced in 2013, and in 2011 gave a commitment to a package of support for energy intensive industries. In October 2012, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills consulted on it, and it has now come into effect, but there is still no time scale for when compensation or mitigation will be in place because the carbon floor tax mitigation proposals are stuck in Europe. One would have thought that that would be checked out before we went down that route. Industry needs to be confident about when that mitigation will come into effect.

I have the highest regard for the Energy Secretary because he is on the side of manufacturing and wants the foundation industries to succeed, but in a written answer the Minister said that

“£16 million has been paid to 17 companies.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 142W.]

However, in a later written answer, he said that applications were still being considered, implying that nothing had been paid out. Last week, he said in answer to a question that 20 companies had had moneys paid out. There is still a bit of confusion about what exactly is happening. He is brandishing sheets of paper, which are probably complex but clarify the matter.

That demonstrates the fact that the landscape is confusing and complex. The carbon floor tax has been unilaterally imposed. There is no sign yet of any mitigation there. The mitigation of the European trading scheme seems to be trickling out. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge said, the issue of most concern to steel makers involves the renewables obligation and we need to ensure that that is addressed. The danger is that, if mitigation is not put in place, the current renewables obligation will be catastrophic to foundational industries in the UK.

What needs to happen next? We must maximise efforts to achieve state aid clearance on the carbon floor tax, to move to compensation or to implement quickly interim measures to give confidence to investors and our manufacturing base. We must extend the time horizon of the package, which is currently three years. Investment horizons in industries such as steel extend for decades. The principle of long-term certainty is accepted by the Government and Opposition for support schemes for low-carbon generation. We need the same sort of long-term certainty for these investments.

Gas and Electricity Bills

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

People in my constituency are worried about the rising cost of their energy bills. As the winter looms, they are looking for the Government to take action to protect them from rising prices.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of Scunthorpe,

Declares that the Petitioners support gas and electricity bills being frozen.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to introduce legislation that will freeze gas and electricity bills.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P001300]

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

- Hansard -

The petition states:

To the House of Commons.

The Petition of a resident of the UK,

Declares that under Prime Minister David Cameron gas and electricity bills have gone up by £300 for the average household and further that the Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband will freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017.

The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons supports Labour's proposals to freeze energy bills.

And the Petitioner remains, etc.

[P001301]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

7. What recent steps the Government have taken to uphold the armed forces covenant.

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

14. What recent steps the Government have taken to uphold the armed forces covenant.

The Economy

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Commons Chamber

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

The plan of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had been fiscal austerity coupled with an evacuation from the public sector, and it was initially assumed that that plan would by itself provide private sector growth. The plan has clearly failed because of its flawed logic and odd priorities. Under that flawed logic, more spending was planned for Post Office mutualisation than the original English regional growth fund.

Forecast growth has consistently been downgraded, while borrowing has been consistently revised upwards, from £46 billion extra to more than £158 billion extra and rising. While deficit reduction is highlighted by the Prime Minister, private sector growth was assumed, reliant upon foreign consumption at a time of international downturn in all consumption. That international downturn is nowhere more evident than in the eurozone, which the Government are at pains to attack politically at a time when the eurozone needs political union more than ever in order to provide fiscal credibility. Counter-intuitively, however, the Government undermine the required confidence, and in so doing only succeed in bad-mouthing the very export markets we so desperately need to retain in the interim until new market partners are developed.

Not until last week’s autumn statement did we hear an acceptance by the Chancellor that private sector investment requires confidence and a reduction in risk via the injection of public investment. That is either achieved directly by underwriting projects or, as we have seen, by off-balance-sheet lending on an unprecedented scale. That lending is, of course, premised upon Britain’s own position in respect of a now highly likely eurozone bank failure if no political union is established to reinforce fiscal union. The consequences of that will be extraordinarily grave for our financial institutions, given the potential for contagion. What is even more troubling is that the Office for Budget Responsibility believes the effect of the autumn statement’s attempt to rectify this situation is negligible.

The Chancellor will also be aware that the Bank of England has purchased 42% of gilt issuance, owning 30% of total gilt stock. Britain’s interest rates have been made lower as a result. That has been achieved by the independent Bank of England’s purchasing policy, not because of the Chancellor’s fiscal measures. It is interesting to note that this self-given “safe haven status” by the Chancellor has not led to increased international market ownership of British gilts. Indeed, international market ownership of gilts has not changed from 2008 levels.

Quantitative easing is also a reason for that. When the independent Bank of England buys gilts from banks and pension funds, some of the money is re-channelled into the sterling corporate bond market. That is great for the City, sterling and London property investment, but as yet there has been no trickle-down for regional small and medium-sized enterprises or regional high streets despite the much-hailed Project Merlin.

What have been the consequences of the Government’s counter-intuitive policy for manufacturing and industry? I should state that the Government’s aim to address our deteriorating balance of trade in order to create the surpluses we need is admirable. However, our balance of trade has deteriorated in the last 18 months under the Prime Minister’s and Chancellor’s watch. Last month’s Markit and Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply index slumped to 47.6, the lowest level since June 2009. Any figure below 50 is usually an early indicator of contraction.

In the EEF’s last quarterly survey of more than 450 manufacturers the growth forecast for 2012 has been cut to 0.9% from 2.5%, a figure it predicted only a few months ago. There is obviously a contraction, and a contraction that prefigures the eurozone crisis. This contraction undermines the Government’s valid ambition to pursue export-led manufacturing growth. There is no manufacturing growth, and also an interim skills mismatch as any private sector manufacturing roles are being supplied with surplus labour from mass public sector redundancies and retail redundancies. In the 1980s there was the cultural phenomenon of mass long-term male unemployment due to a politicised attack upon unionised, largely male, manufacturing sites, and we now face the proposition of mass female unemployment as the public sector and retail sector shed employees, again in the public sector’s case due to a largely anti-trade union, dogmatic narrative mirroring the diatribes from the Conservatives in the 1980s.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is giving a powerful analysis of the situation the country faces. Does he agree that we desperately need demand in the economy from somewhere, whereas what he is describing is a situation of contraction, rather than demand to fuel economic growth?

[Tom Blenkinsop]

My hon. Friend will know the consequences of the policies so far. We have seen massive job haemorrhages at Scunthorpe steelworks, and there was the recent announcement about Llanwern, where nearly 200 steelworkers face unemployment as a result of the mothballing of that site. Another site in Scunthorpe, next door to the steelworks, has decided to move to a short-time working agreement. Those are the consequences of these economic policies.

Culturally and economically, these policies are counter-intuitive to the needs of the economy. We need not just to rebalance the economy per se, but to rebalance structural unemployment, which requires as large an investment as that proposed for the infrastructure. For example, in the steel industry, becoming a waterman—probably the most important job on a blast furnace, involving as it does ensuring that water does not mix with molten steel—requires a minimum of two years’ training. That is a considerable cost for the industry.

Unemployment is predicted to pass 9% next year, according to the “optimistic” estimate of the Office for Budget Responsibility—and at what cost to the Exchequer? Such estimates actually predate the autumn statement, which increased public sector unemployment by 200,000—from 500,000 to more than 710,000. My major concern, as the son of a British expatriate family that sought a future in Qatar during the early 1980s, when the previous Tory Government ratcheted up unemployment on Teesside, is another diaspora of British skilled manufacturing labour moving to other, far-flung nations. The promise of warmer climes and job certainty will be hard to resist for many, especially as a recent Experian study for BBC’s “Newsnight” showed that Redcar and Cleveland, and Middlesbrough are among the top three areas hardest hit by the Chancellor’s autumn statement.

It is not just the public sector cuts. The proximity of the north-east, which has no regional development agency, to Scotland is having severe consequences for our regional economy, as Scotland, which has its own RDA, is absorbing that manufacturing.

Women are losing their jobs at twice the rate that men are, and the Chancellor’s decision to freeze the working tax credit will hit women hard, especially working single mothers. That move, coupled with his decision to claw back money that would have been spent on the child tax credit, will have a significant impact on the well-being of the 36% of single mothers who claim working tax credit, and their families. What will happen to their incentive to work?

Fuel Prices

Debate between Tom Blenkinsop and Nicholas Dakin

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Commons Chamber

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

I want to address this debate from the perspective of a low-paid part-time worker. Working families will be told to earn at least £212.80 a week or face having tax credits removed. In my constituency, particularly in places such as rural east Cleveland, as well as suburbs such as Hemlington and Coulby Newham in Middlesbrough, many women work part-time at or just above the minimum wage. After recent public transport cuts by the Government affecting over 90% of local authorities outside London, those women are forced, in the main, to travel by private car. This will become even more the case next year when the Government remove the subsidy for bus fares, further increasing by 20% the cost to the customer of public transport in the form of buses.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that women are particularly badly affected by fuel prices?

[Tom Blenkinsop]

That is precisely the point I am making. The lack of a Government growth strategy is making it even more difficult for women to exist within or get into the labour market.

Those women and other workers, particularly in my constituency, need affordable transport, and the Chancellor’s 20% VAT rate is counter-intuitive to that requirement. The economic climate is such that growth in private sector jobs is flatlining, and such jobs are mainly part-time and low paid. The problem is that people who want to work full-time can only get part-time jobs. Part-time employment cannot fund the everyday necessity of a car, and part-time workers are increasingly reliant on a diminishing—