Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of launching a campaign to encourage the purchase of steel made in the UK that is similar to the Buy American Act in the US.

The Government wants UK businesses to be successful in bidding for UK public contracts. We also want UK businesses to be successful in competing for public contracts in other countries around the world, which we achieve by negotiating guaranteed market access for UK suppliers in many international free trade agreements. This reciprocal guaranteeing of market access means treating each other’s suppliers in the same way as we treat domestic suppliers. The terms of these agreements mean that legally it is not possible for the UK to have a similar policy.

It is important to note that the Buy America policy does not apply to members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement, which includes the UK, so our steel suppliers are not affected.