Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, (a) how much steel in weight his Department has procured, (b) for what purpose that steel was procured and (c) what the countries of origin of that steel were in each of the last five years.

The department did not collect this data over the period in which the coalition government was in power and so we are unfortunately not able to provide this information.

In Autumn 2015, Government issued guidance to central government departments on how to take social and economic factors into account in their procurements to help level the playing field for UK steel producers. This guidance has now been extended to the wider public sector.

Since publication of the guidance, Government has been working closely with departments to monitor its impact and ensure delivery. There are no plans to share Government level data publicly, due to its provisional nature.

On 13th December 2016, the Government published its indicative future steel requirements to 2020, to enable UK steel manufacturers to better plan in advance of future government contracts.