Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Leong on his debut in this debate. It was a very good one as well, and we look forward to similar contributions in the future. I welcome the Bill. I welcome it because, first, there has been almost unanimity in this debate from your Lordships regarding the significance of steel and the importance of having steel as a critical and vital part of our economy. That is a very important starter. How we do it, I suspect, will be the cause of lots of debates in Committee and on Report. But it is vital to our construction, to our defence and to our engineering. It is vital because of the uncertain world that we now live in: a world of tariffs and wars and presidents who are unpredictable and dictators all around the world. As we debate this, the G7 is meeting meet in Evian, and each of the countries around the table has its own steel industry.

It is also vital—this has not been touched on too much in this debate—for the communities around the steel industry. You would expect a Welshman to refer to the Welsh steel industry as part of our life in Wales. It is in our blood. I come from a family of miners and steelworkers. I represented a constituency in the other place that was a steel-making constituency. In Blaenavon, the Gilchrist-Thomas process was invented, which transformed steel-making in the 19th century. I had in the constituency a stainless steel works, which for generations was hugely important to our communities. As an aside, before I entered politics, I taught in a college in Ebbw Vale at the time when the steelworks was almost completely closed. The impact of that closure on a one-industry town was devastating. That is why, in terms of British Steel and Scunthorpe, it is about the significance not simply of keeping our steel industry but of ensuring that our communities are healthy and intact.

I point out to the House that we are only talking about approximately half of steel-making coming from British Steel. The other half comes from Wales, from an industry which is not nationalised. The great Port Talbot steelworks, which is now changing over from blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces, is where the whole of the steel-making capacity of Tata in Wales is produced. It is interesting that this 50% of steel-making is not nationalised. It is a working partnership between, on the one hand, the Government—by which I mean two Governments, the Government in Cardiff and the Government here in Westminster—and the company itself. The deal, which was struck only days before the general election, meant that approximately £1.3 billion was to be invested in Port Talbot: £500 million of that came from the then Conservative Government. This Government have honoured it and indeed have gone further by giving about £120 million to retraining and by ensuring that procurement rules have changed, so that British companies must use British steel. To that end, 5,000 jobs are to be maintained in Port Talbot. So, as welcome as this Bill is, we must see it in context. It is only part of the picture: only half of it.

The questions I would like to ask the Minister concern Port Talbot, which this month suffered a severe fire on its site and is facing some difficulties with that. Also, there are hugely important problems with the supply of electricity—and I very much take the points that have been made regarding the cost of electricity. We cannot ignore it as a Labour Government. We must look at it very seriously. Secondly, there are planning issues which have been faced by the company in Port Talbot. These I would have thought can be overcome if my noble friend liaised with the Secretary for Wales and with the new Welsh Government.

At the end of the day, all of us understand that we cannot be without a British steel industry. Nothing is going to be easy with regard to this. There is no easy solution to it. But this is at least a start. It is the right thing to do and it is the British thing to do.

Supreme Court Dillon Judgment

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an incredibly important point. I myself visited one of the sites earlier this year, where they were looking for one of the disappeared. I have never had that kind of experience before, while I stood on the side of a bog while people were looking for a body. We will continue to fund the commission and we will do everything we can to make sure that the structures exist for the families of the disappeared, including the family of Robert Nairac but also others, until we get answers for all of them.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the work she has done on this hugely important issue, including in the previous Parliament, when we considered the legacy Bill, as it then was. It was very well-meaning but ultimately was not successful because it did not have sufficient all-party support in Northern Ireland. Can she assure me that, before the Bill comes up the Corridor to this House, she will have talked to all the political parties in Northern Ireland, represented here and in Belfast, and that she can get consensus on that? Unless we get consensus, that will not work either.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My noble friend has just used the word “consensus” in relation to Northern Ireland politicians. With the best of efforts—looking at the noble Lord, Lord Caine—while I consider myself not to be a bad politician, I am not sure that I have those diplomatic skills that will deliver for everybody. I say that as someone who just called the noble Lord “my noble friend”.

Having said that, we are working cross-party with all key parties. The noble Lord is absolutely right. There is one part of our politics that genuinely should not be party-political in a GB sense: the politics of Northern Ireland and making sure that peace is sustainable in Northern Ireland and that we are doing what we can collectively and taking the responsibility of being the main political parties in the United Kingdom to deliver for the people of NI as we do for every other corner of the country. Noble Lords will appreciate that there are always challenges in this space, but I will try to be as charming as possible to deliver what I can in getting a level of support, as my honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State, is doing too.

King’s Speech

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I noticed earlier that two of my predecessors as Secretary of State for Wales talked about steel. I will touch briefly on that, although it is not the thrust of what my remarks will be about.

It is almost 60 years to the day that I attended a great rally in Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, when Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of the day, addressed us on steel nationalisation. He announced that it would be one of his first tasks—it happened in 1967—and a great roar went up from the very large Labour Party crowd in Sophia Gardens. Those were the days when we had those crowds there. That reminds me that steel was hugely important, not only for Wales but for our whole country—it was integral to it. I am not sure that I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, but I agree with his emphasis on doing something about steel, and I very seriously agree with the Government on what they are going to do in their Bill.

I will now touch on the European Union Bill. We have had some very colourful and spirited contributions from the other side of the Chamber on this issue. Whatever side one took in the Brexit debate, the reality is that 20-odd miles away, 350 million people live and trade with us, and therefore it is the biggest trading partner we have. It simply does not make sense that we do not trade with it in the best way we could. It makes sense that we should ensure that the SPS arrangements for food and drink are in place for the industries and businesses that want those changes to come about. My successor as Member of Parliament for Torfaen, the right honourable Nick Thomas-Symonds, is doing a very good job in that regard.

The same is the case with Erasmus. Does it not make sense that we have Erasmus+ for our young people in all parts of the United Kingdom? Of course it does. Therefore, those proposals are hugely important.

My noble friend Lord Robertson made, as always, a spectacularly impressive speech about where we are with regard to defence and our global position. I hope that the Government listen to him and his wise words. He told us that the landscape in our world has changed dramatically over the last number of years, and so has the landscape with regard to the 11 million of us who live in devolved Administrations in the United Kingdom. When I was the Secretary for Wales and for Northern Ireland, there was a Labour Government in Cardiff, in London and in Edinburgh. There was no Labour Government in Northern Ireland. There was direct rule. So I negotiated with myself on those particular issues.

That was an important factor in those early days, but the world has changed. The world changed last Thursday in Wales, of course, as Plaid Cymru is now the governing party in Wales. In Scotland, after 19 years, the SNP still rules there. Northern Ireland, which I will come to in a second, is rather different. But in Scotland, which voted to remain in the European Union, the Scottish National Party is a pro-European party. Scotland, under a Labour Government and indeed under an SNP one, benefited enormously from its membership of the European Union. Wales benefited enormously. We had the Objective 1 money coming to us all those years ago, which brought billions of pounds for investment in Wales. Wales voted to leave. But the Plaid Cymru Government is a pro-European Government.

In Northern Ireland, 56% of the people voted to remain. But, as your Lordships know, there is deep division. Generally speaking—not exclusively—nationalists voted to remain and unionists wanted to leave the European Union. The problem we then had when Brexit came was: how can you reconcile the terms of the Good Friday agreement, which was firmly based on a common membership of the European Union? The Irish and British Governments were partners in the Union. It meant that we could negotiate that agreement on very different terms from what had happened many years before. Objective 1 money came to Northern Ireland—billions of pounds again. Social Fund money but particularly, of course, peace money came to Northern Ireland. That meant that the nationalist and the unionist communities had to negotiate at local level in order to acquire that money and it helped the peace process.

So, when Brexit came, what could you do? The problem then was that Ireland remains in the European Union and the United Kingdom has come out of it, so we had the protocol, which was not very good. It was a start but, in fact, had there been at that time, and there was not, the institutions in Northern Ireland, both the Executive and the Assembly, I believe they could have solved the issue of how to deal with it themselves. As it was, it was imposed and did not work. Then we had the Windsor Framework, which was better, certainly—although, in between, the institutions had collapsed, which brought the Windsor Framework about. But that has been proven to be very complex, with huge bureaucracy for business and there is a democratic deficit.

Last year the Government asked me to do a review of it, which I did, and I made 17 recommendations. The Government accepted them. It means that we are going to have a one-stop shop in Northern Ireland so that people can overcome the bureaucracy. In addition, steps have been taken to deal with the democratic deficit. When we look at this EU Bill to come and the issues surrounding the democratic deficit which people argue will occur if we adopt it, you need look only to Northern to see whether we can adopt some of the new proposals to ensure that we ameliorate those difficulties. I say to my noble friend the Minister from the Treasury—as always, the Treasury is very important—that although money has come to Northern Ireland as a result of my review, we also need more money to ensure that those recommendations are put into practice, and that all political parties in Northern Ireland are involved in it.

My other plea to the Government, on the negotiations that are to come with the European Union Bill, is the involvement of all the devolved Administrations in that issue. Even though there are an SNP Government in Edinburgh and a Plaid Cymru Government in Cardiff, it means we have to take the people along with us, and there are very different views—of course there are. All I know is that only benefits can come from this Bill. If industry wants it, if business wants it and if the academic community in our country wants it, surely it must be a good thing, and so it has my fullest support.

Northern Ireland After Brexit (Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee Report)

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure to follow my good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and the way in which he outlined and gave the details of his report. My report and review entirely paralleled the inquiry held by the committee. Much of it is the same. I thank the members of the committee who produced that report. It was not easy. They come from different political backgrounds and have different views on the issue, but the consensus that arose from it was almost completely the same as the recommendations that I eventually made.

I thank the Government and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for accepting every single one of my recommendations. I will come later to the practicality of that side. I thank the 100 bodies and organisations that I talked to, both in Northern Ireland and here in Great Britain, which gave me great insight into the workings of the Windsor Framework.

As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, my review was triggered by the fact that there was disagreement, towards the end of 2024, on what to do about the Windsor Framework. The Assembly voted, but not on a cross-community basis. The result of that was that it automatically triggered the review that I was to undertake some months later.

That reflects, in many ways, the disastrous process that followed Brexit. I make no comment on Brexit itself. I was not in favour of it, but it is not about that; it is about the effects of Brexit on Northern Ireland, which simply were not debated enough at the time. The people who decided these things and those who debated the whole issue of Brexit underestimated the impact that it would have on Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland voted in favour of remaining a part of the European Union, but of course, that does not work, because you go in as a member state or not. My own country, Wales, voted the other way, against my recommendations. The consequence of all this is that Governments have to find a way around this unusual situation. One bit of the island of Ireland is in the European Union and the other bit is outside. Inevitably, as a consequence of what we decided 26 years ago in the Good Friday agreement and whether we should have a hard border, this caused enormous complications.

The other thing that I emphasise to your Lordships is that, in my view, if the institutions had been up and running at the time of Brexit, there would have been a much better resolution of this. I am not saying that it would have been easy, but people in Northern Ireland would have made their own decisions about their own future. One thing that I have learned over a quarter of a century of dealing with Northern Ireland business is that imposition in Northern Ireland is always disastrous and that effective solutions to problems have to come from the people in Northern Ireland through their elected representatives all the time. It did not happen. As a consequence of that, we had a protocol that, strangely and bizarrely, was denounced by the Government who created it. That was not very good. Then we had the Windsor Framework, which was undoubtedly better than that. That is what we are debating today.

One problem that I faced during my review were the very deep feelings about the constitutional impact of Brexit and the Windsor Framework. Unionists take a very different view from nationalists on the effect of the Windsor Framework on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. That was well beyond the remit of what I was allowed to report on; I am not sure that I would have wanted to report on it, but I would have had a bash, even if I would not have got very far in the end. A fundamental problem with my review was that I could not touch those views that every unionist party or representative made to me about the constitutional impact of the Windsor Framework. I very much accept that it is an issue.

It was also made clear to me that the vote in Northern Ireland to accept the framework was not done on a cross-community basis. As a consequence, it went against the spirit of the Good Friday agreement. I am not completely convinced about that, but I am convinced that it went against the spirit of parity of esteem. Whether you are a nationalist, a unionist or neither, parity of esteem means that your views are regarded to the same extent. I am not sure—in fact I am unconvinced—that the parity of esteem principle has not been overlooked in all this. At the end of my remarks, I will come to why I think that that should be looked at again.

There were two issues from looking at the report, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said. One was the democratic deficit. I will not go into the detail of the recommendations that I made, to which the noble Lord has referred, but the Democratic Scrutiny Committee did not and does not operate as well as it could. It operates under great burdens: it does not have enough time, staff or expertise. There is insufficient liaison with the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels. Great changes can be made to make that work better. Those points were made to me by everybody, whether nationalists or unionists. The Government have accepted the principle of those recommendations, but we need to see them working in practice.

I am not sure that the Stormont brake has got anybody anywhere. It was regarded as being hugely significant. In theory it probably is, but in reality it has not proved to be the saviour of the situation that people expected. We will wait to see what happens on the Stormont brake, but it was certainly a genuine attempt to try to overcome the difficulties. But these are complex mechanisms, which an ordinary voter in Northern Ireland would find hard to deal with.

I had the pleasure of meeting the Democratic Scrutiny Committee, which wrote to me as well and indicated the difficulties that it faced. I also met the Committee for the Economy of the Northern Ireland Assembly. They were both extremely good meetings and the points made by all members from all political persuasions were very valuable.

One point that they all made was that, if you want to influence a decision on legislation, do it early; do not wait until later. It is the same here: if you want to influence legislation in this Government and Parliament, try to resolve it at an early stage. That is why it is important that the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels is properly manned by specialists who can deal with this at that early stage and catch problems before they ever get to Belfast.

The other big issue was the enormous burden on businesses that the framework has brought—not on big ones, which have lots of money and can employ people to deal with the complexities of the bureaucracy, but on small and medium-sized businesses, which cannot do that. Interestingly, I just came back yesterday from the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which was meeting in Tralee. I was talking to a nationalist MLA who was describing to me the problems that her constituents were having, including small businesses. She quoted a women’s hairdresser, who was probably going to pack up because she could not deal with the bureaucracy surrounding all this. That was interesting because the person saying this to me was from the nationalist community; I get it regularly from the unionist side of things, of course.

Probably the most significant recommendation that the committee and I have made is on the one-stop shop. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, made the point that that is so important for Britain, as it is for businesses in Northern Ireland itself. Very often, a British business simply will not bother with the bureaucracy to send stuff to Northern Ireland to be sold. The organisation chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, InterTrade UK, will have a significant part to play in that, to try to explain those burdens to British business.

There is a definite case, for example, to have trusted trader status for the haulage industry in Northern Ireland—that is one of my recommendations, and I hope it is acted on soon. There is a case for the duty reimbursement scheme to be improved so that businesses do not have cash-flow problems. I made some other recommendations regarding Article 2, dealing with human rights.

The electronic travel area—ETA—regulations that operate on the island of Ireland are not part of my recommendations, but I touched on them in the report because of the importance that people felt they had. They are causing severe problems for the hospitality and tourist industry in Northern Ireland. Again, at the BIPA conference in Tralee this week, I asked the Irish Government Minister, and it was a matter of debate.

I will not go into any more of the details, suffice it to say that you could not put a cigarette paper between my report and the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. They say the same things because they are the obvious things to say. I conclude by saying just three things. First, I say to the Government that it is wonderful to have the recommendations agreed, but we now await the action on those recommendations, and the sooner the better, particularly on the one-stop shop.

Secondly, the SPS agreement is absolutely vital. The quicker that happens, the better, because my experience of these things is that Europe is not exactly quick in dealing with various negotiations, and the sooner that happens, the better.

Thirdly, all these recommendations are about making the current scheme better, making it work and helping businesses, but they do not go to the heart of the political disagreement on this. That needs to be addressed too. I am not sure how that will be done because it is not easy—but it is never easy in Northern Ireland. When we drew up the Good Friday agreement all those years ago, who would have thought we could have resolved those enormous issues? But we did eventually resolve them. So, if we can do that, perhaps we can also resolve the issues that surround the Windsor Framework because, as long as they are untouched, it will be a running sore.

In the meantime, we have to be practical and make it better for individual business, better for people and better for Northern Ireland. The sooner we have the Government’s recommendations, the better.