Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Steel public procurement 2020: Compliance with the steel procurement guidance (PPN 11/16), published 09 October 2020, if he will make it his policy to include figures on the share of steel produced in the UK that is used in offshore wind developments that are supported by the public purse in future editions of that publication.

The Government is committed to ensuring that UK steel producers have the best possible chance of competing for and winning the contracts associated with our domestic infrastructure investment.

The publication of the annual steel pipeline on national infrastructure projects and steel data on public sector procurement is part of this commitment. This information serves both as testament to our ambitious plans for the use of UK-sourced steel within our pipeline of major public infrastructure projects, but also as an accountability mechanism, as we work in collaboration with the sector to achieve this shared aim.

In October 2020 we published data of the steel pipeline of offshore wind national infrastructure projects to enable UK steel manufacturers to better plan for these projects.

Going forward, the Government will consider whether to publish annual figures of UK steel used in past offshore wind projects, if it is in the public interest.