Andrew Percy
Main Page: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)Department Debates - View all Andrew Percy's debates with the Cabinet Office
Protecting Steel in the UK
Andrew Percy Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Ghani
I will make a bit of progress and then I will take interventions.
Tata’s proposed plans have the potential to turn around its economic fortunes—it is losing £1.5 million a day—and to deal with emissions, but it is also about adopting new technology and meeting customers’ needs. I know that there are huge concerns, because that means job losses. The concerns hon. Members have expressed for the people of Port Talbot are our concerns too, and they are shared by Members right across the House. They have been represented by the Government in our negotiations with the company.
As I said, we are holding Tata to account, ensuring that the transition is managed properly so that every employee receives the support they deserve. That includes £100 million of funding for a dedicated transition board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Wales and including members of the Welsh Government, to support affected employees and to provide a plan to protect and grow the local economy in the next decade. Tata also announced on Friday that on top of that £100 million, it would provide an additional £130-million comprehensive support package for affected employees.
Andrew Percy
I thank my hon. Friend. She has been a friend to those of us on these Benches who have been concerned about our local steel jobs and she has been a champion within Government for our steel industry, so I thank her on behalf of our steelworkers for her support. May I urge her to be cautious in listening to the Opposition, who more than halved the number of people who worked in the industry last time they were in power?
It is clear that customers will want green steel in the future, but does my hon. Friend agree with those of us in Scunthorpe who want to retain a capability of some sort when it comes to virgin steel?
Ms Ghani
The technology has moved on. Although 90% of everything that we need can be made from recycled steel, there is a gap, and Scunthorpe is obviously filling that gap at the moment.
My hon. Friend also made an important point about the Opposition, who are talking about potential job losses. In 1997, 70,000 people worked in the steel industry; by 2010, that number had fallen to 30,600—a fall of 40,000 jobs or 56%. The Labour leader between 2010 and 2015 did not mention the steel industry once in Parliament. Our investment at Port Talbot is the largest that has been made for a substantial period, and although the situation is challenging, without that support there was a massive risk that Tata would have left Port Talbot.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
The news from Tata Steel is extremely concerning, and it leaves Scunthorpe as the last place in the whole of the UK that is able to make virgin steel. It is incredible to me that I am here again making the argument to retain the UK’s virgin steelmaking capability. There have been challenges from across the House on those views, so I will go into detail about some of those challenges.
Some people seem to think that we can make whatever we need in an electric arc furnace. It is true that the range of products is increasing all the time and will continue to expand, but those products are dependent on scrap and all scrap is not equal. We may have the correct tonnage of scrap in this country, but no one has yet convinced me that it is the correct quality of scrap. That is a really important point that we need to recognise.
People have said that we do not export iron ore from this country. That is incorrect; we do export iron ore as a country. People say that we do not have coking coal capability in this country. That is incorrect, because there is a perfectly good metallurgical coal mine in Cumbria waiting to be used. Some will make the argument about reducing the carbon footprint of steel products, using a purely electric arc model, to which I would again point out that many products melted in an electric arc furnace require an input of virgin steel in the mix. People on the works have told me—I listen to them because they know their stuff—that some of those products that they want to make in an EAF will need 30% virgin steel in the mix.
Andrew Percy
Is it not then clear that, given what my hon. Friend has said, it is vital that the Government negotiations with British Steel retain that virgin steel capability?
Holly Mumby-Croft
My hon. Friend, who knows a great deal about steel, is absolutely right. We need to remember that if we are not making that virgin steel here in the UK, it will come from someone else’s blast furnaces, probably from the other side of the world. We will have no control over the emissions or how that steel is produced. We will have no control over the welfare of the people who make it. The steel will then be put on a ship—a ship with a diesel engine, not a sail—and driven over here to be thrown into our electric arc furnaces to make that mix.