Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent discussions he has had with the the Chancellor of the Exchequer on retrospective steel safeguarding charges imposed on businesses.

Both the UK and EU separately apply a safeguard measure on certain categories of steel products. A safeguard measure protects domestic producers from injury as a result of unforeseen surges of imports. Both the UK and EU apply a 25% duty where import thresholds have been exceeded. HMRC may have the necessary data pertaining to any assessment of the total costs by businesses on the UK safeguard measure. However, since the expiry of the transition period an assessment has not been conducted. I will write to you on your question once my officials have consulted with HMRC.