Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what estimate he has made of the volume and value of steel imports that were subject to contractual commitments before the announcement of revised safeguard measures on 14 March 2026; what transitional arrangements will apply to such contracts after 1 July 2026; and whether he will consider extending the implementation period to avoid financial penalties for businesses that entered into agreements before the policy was announced.

The new steel trade measure has been designed to strike a careful balance between supporting domestic steelmaking and maintaining secure, reliable supply for downstream users, including the makeup and length of the transitional arrangement to ease short term impacts. It is not possible to give an estimate of the volume and value of steel subject to contractual commitments before 14 March 2026 given that information is held by individual businesses. However, our measure design has been informed by last year’s Call for Evidence which attracted 100 responses from industry.

The measure has also been designed to only cover steel requirements that can be met in the UK. Where this is not feasible for technical reasons, for example where product codes contain both steel products that can be made in the UK and products that cannot be made, quotas sizes are being set with the aim of allowing continued availability of goods to UK downstream users without unnecessary additional costs. We will continue to monitor the impact of the measure and review it after 12 months to ensure the balance is right between producers and downstream users.