Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the environmental benefits of utilising more of the scrap steel produced in the UK each year.

Some ten million tonnes of scrap metal is processed into secondary raw material in the UK each year. A proportion of this is collected through the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Regulations and End of Life Vehicles Regulations schemes. As scrap metals have a commercial value, the market determines where this material will go.

The Government has commissioned research to understand the economic, environmental and social opportunities of scrap metal, particularly steel. The results of this research will be published shortly.

Additionally, in August 2019, the Government announced a £250 million Clean Steel Fund to support the UK steel sector to transition to lower carbon iron and steel production, through investment in new technologies and processes. The Fund will help the sector towards achieving our target of net zero emissions by 2050, by maximising longevity and resilience while harnessing clean growth opportunities. Dependent on company business plans, this could include supporting the sector to replace carbon intensive blast furnace production with electric arc furnaces that would utilise UK scrap.