UK Steel Industry Debate

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UK Steel Industry

Jo Stevens Excerpts
Monday 11th April 2016

(8 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Sajid Javid Portrait Sajid Javid
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we have set out an infrastructure pipeline of more than £300 billion in investment—the largest in any five-year period—and many of the projects have been announced. With the changes in procurement rules and those investment plans, we can make a difference like never before and do everything we can in every project to make sure that British steel is used.

Jo Stevens Portrait Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
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I am sure the Secretary of State’s civil servants in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have been working extremely hard to try to safeguard the 40,000 Welsh steel and supplier jobs that are at immediate risk, just as the staff at the Insolvency Service were critical in ensuring that the Redcar workers got their redundancy payments. Will he therefore reassure my constituents that the hundreds of BIS jobs losses at the critical Insolvency Service in Cardiff, which were outlined in his McKinsey report, will not happen, adding to the misery of Welsh workers?

Sajid Javid Portrait Sajid Javid
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What I can assure the hon. Lady of is that any job reductions that are, sadly, taking place in BIS or any other Department—there are more Departments involved in this than just BIS, although, of course, we are the lead Department—will not have an impact on our ability to help and to handle the steel crisis.