Backing Business to Create Economic Growth
Debate between Ayoub Khan and Peter Kyle(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Peter Kyle
I have committed to invest in, modernise and protect the steel industry where I need to. Those are watchwords that I apply throughout the economy in highly volatile times. We are investing up to £2.5 billion to modernise and transform the steel sector, from blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces—those are the kinds of transformations we need to make. If I had invested that money but not also protected our sector, that would be pouring vast amounts of public money straight down the drain. In certain circumstances I have had to step in and use measures to protect the domestic British industry. I am not introducing measures for any products that are not manufactured in the UK. I am doing so wisely; I am doing so to protect and ensure that we can build and retain a steel industry that is fit for the future and sustainable.
We will move forward and ensure that, in an era of global instability, we have the key aspects of our supply chain that we need for our resilience as a nation—yes, in defence; yes, in industry; and yes, in all the money we are investing in infrastructure. We must reserve those capabilities. I am listening and engaging with all parts of the steel sector, and the manufacturers and businesses that depend on it. I am listening closely to them. If there are any impacts, I will of course engage with them to understand and see how it will be possible, where necessary, to provide support.
Peter Kyle
No, I am going to carry on. I appreciate Members’ kind offers to intervene again and again; I look forward to all their speeches.
The Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill will give us the authority to bring British Steel into public ownership, not as an ideological exercise but as a practical means of safeguarding the national interest. It will allow us to retain the Scunthorpe plant as a critical piece of our national infrastructure that is essential to British economic resilience. Britain has long been a proud steelmaking nation. Whatever I have to do to make it so, Britain will retain its capacity and capability to manufacture steel. That is my commitment to Members in this House and to the remaining steel communities of our country. The strength of that commitment can be measured in our determination to boost domestic steel production to ensure that 50% of the steel used here is made here.
Britain cannot make its way in the world as a services-only economy. We have to make our way—earn our way—to greater prosperity, equality, security and opportunity. We cannot do that by economic isolationism, neoliberalism, greater protectionism or a command economy. We cannot regulate our way to prosperity. We can achieve it only through practical and pragmatic policies that support British businesses to be profitable, to scale up, to create jobs and to grow. We have to end the outdated free-market ideologies, failed economic theories and siren voices that all but destroyed Britain’s manufacturing base and drove the British public towards Brexit. Britain’s future prosperity can be built only by business success. There is no other way, no shortcut, no easy option and no magic bullet—no matter how attractive and simplistic slogans and superficial soundbites may appear to some.