British Steel

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

A significant part of the ongoing steel strategy will be thinking about how the provisioning of energy will be created for the long term as a reliable and sustainable source. That will form part of the long-term steel strategy plan that will be coming out. That will include provisions about how or whether it will appropriate to use hydrogen as part of that consideration.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister find time today to look at the comments by one of the UK’s foremost energy experts, Simon French of Panmure Liberum, who recently pointed out that when the UK imports oil, gas and coking coal rather than relying on domestic sources the resulting carbon emissions are a staggering four times as high? Therefore, will she commit now to ensuring that the Government look very urgently at opening up coking mines in this country and, indeed, oil and gas fields in the North Sea?

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

There is an immediate and a long-term challenge here. The immediate-term one is working to make sure that British Steel has the raw materials that it needs to be able to keep those blast furnaces running. The UK does not have any operational coke ovens, so we are unable to change domestically mined coal into the coke that is required for blast furnaces. This means we are required to import it. There have been questions about whether we can be thinking about a Cumbria development to be able to source some of that, and it has been explored, but the current assessment is that coal from the Whitehaven mine, for example, has too high a sulphur content for British Steel’s needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I would be more than happy to follow up specifically in that regard.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, can I just push the Minister on the last part of my question? She answered my point about coking coal production in the UK, but not oil and gas fields in the North Sea. Is it now the Government’s intention to pursue vigorously the production in those fields in the North Sea, including Rosebank?

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I am more than happy to follow up specifically on that matter with you separately.