The Minister for Industry (Sarah Jones)
Steel is essential for a modern and secure economy underpinning many sectors, from construction to advanced manufacturing. The UK steel industry provides high-quality jobs in local economies—circa 40,000 jobs across the country and circa 61,000 jobs in the upstream supply chain in 2024—and plays a vital role in infrastructure, manufacturing and defence supply chains, which are critical for economic growth. However, the UK steel industry faces a challenging global trading landscape due to significant steel overcapacity. This overcapacity introduces unfairly cheap imports into the market, artificially lowering prices, reducing profitability, and hindering investment.
The UK Government have taken steps to protect our steel industry from unfair trading practices through the use of trade remedies. This includes a safeguard measure on certain product categories of steel due to expire on 30 June 2026. Initially applied in 2018 by the EU on behalf of the EU28, the measure was transitioned to the UK’s independent trading system after leaving the EU.
It is within this context that we are launching a call for evidence on steel trade measures, inviting stakeholders across the steel supply chain, including manufacturers, distributors, and end-users of steel products, to provide input, as well as other industries that may be indirectly affected by tariff policy changes. The evidence gathered will support the development of future trade policy options for imported steel products, following the expiry of the steel safeguard. Our goal is to ensure a balanced approach that considers the needs of all interested parties.
The call for evidence will be open for six weeks and will be available at https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/steel-trade-measures We encourage all interested stakeholders to respond. The objectives of this call for evidence have been designed to align with the UK’s trade strategy and industrial strategy, the resilience of steel supply chains, and other wider priorities within the steel strategy.
Background
The UK steel industry faces a challenging global trading landscape due to significant steel overcapacity. The OECD estimates the gap between global steel production capacity and demand—“excess capacity”—was 551 million metric tonnes in 2023. Research from the OECD has shown the global steel excess capacity is expected to continue to worsen beyond 2026. Compounding this problem is trade deflection resulting from other countries’ responses to steel excess capacity and increased geopolitical trade tensions between major trading partners.
This overcapacity artificially and unfairly lowers prices, reducing profitability and hindering investments in modern and lower-carbon technologies. In this global context, increased dependency on steel imports then impacts the security and resilience of UK supply chains and exposes the UK to the risk of price fluctuations and disruption. The UK Government have taken steps to protect our steel industry from unfair trading practices through the use of trade remedies. This includes 15 anti-dumping and two anti-subsidy measures on imports from seven individual countries, and a global safeguard measure on steel imports. This safeguard is set to expire in June 2026 in line with World Trade Organisation rules.
The Government recognise the importance of the UK steel industry and the need to ensure the security and resilience of the UK’s steel supply chains and to explore long-term protection beyond the expiry of the steel safeguard. It is within this context that we propose to gather stakeholder views on evidence that will inform future trade policy options on imported steel products.
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