Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of levels of employment in primary and down stream steel firms.

The iron and steel sector supports c. 33,000 direct jobs in the country. Through our £500 million grant for Tata Steel UK’s EAF transformation project at Port Talbot we saved 5,000 UK jobs and our intervention at Scunthorpe last April resulted in British Steel cancelling its redundancy consultation which had put 2,700 jobs at immediate risk. Through the Steel Council, industry, government, and the third sector will work together, bringing expertise to look at workforce considerations on skills and innovation.