Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of ensuring the continuation of domestic steel manufacturing on the UK’s (a) critical national infrastructure resilience and (b) emergency response capability.

We recognise the strategic importance of a secure and resilient steel supply, and the domestic steel sector has an important role to play in supporting our national infrastructure, defence capability and broader national resilience.

This government will continue to support security of supply that protects our national resilience. These factors, among many others, will inform part of our wider approach to the sector ahead of the publication of the steel strategy later this year, and, as announced in the industrial strategy, steel will be a component of ongoing analysis conducted by the new Supply Chain Centre.