Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the environmental impact of allowing steel importers to use global average emissions when selling steel to the UK; and what assessment they have made of the impact of this provision on competitiveness of UK steel producers.

The UK is taking rapid action on industrial decarbonisation to meet net zero, but we recognise that imports into the UK will often not be subject to the same standards, creating a risk of carbon leakage. That is why the UK has committed to introduce a UK Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) from 1 January 2027. The UK CBAM will use one global default emissions value per CBAM good where emissions are not or cannot be provided to determine the CBAM liability. We will work with HM Treasury to assess the impact of this approach and ensure we mitigate the risk of under-pricing the most emissions intensive imports when designing these values.