Steel Industry

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Many of the points relating to Scunthorpe have already been concisely covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). May I slightly widen the debate to include the effect on the northern Lincolnshire economy as a whole? I represent a neighbouring constituency, and many of my constituents work in Scunthorpe. Many also work in ports and logistics, which is an area that is heavily influenced by what happens in Scunthorpe. Indeed Tata Steel has a site on Immingham docks, which is the largest port in the country.

I welcome the £9 million that has been announced by the Government. I say to the Minister that some of my constituents, whom I met at the weekend, were reassured by the interviews that she gave last Friday on the BBC in which she made a clear and welcome commitment to the continuation of the steel industry in Scunthorpe.

I have spent all of my life living in the Grimsby-Cleethorpes area. I witnessed the decline of the deep-sea fishing industry, and saw what the loss of a staple industry can do to a local community. It took a whole generation for the area to go anywhere near to recovery. We need to learn from the mistakes that were made not just in the Grimsby area but in other parts of the country, and provide the necessary support. I know that Ministers are determined to do that. We have had talk of strategies, and strategies are fine, but world conditions can change rather dramatically. We can have as many strategies as we like, but what we need is hard and fast commitment from Government.

A taskforce set up under the able leadership of Councillor Redfern, leader of North Lincolnshire Council, has made some clear asks that were outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole relating to enterprise zones and skills training in the burgeoning offshore industry. I echo his words about the Able UK site at Killingholme, where DONG Energy has a memorandum of understanding signed with Able. The Government did a great deal to support the establishment and give permission for the Able development, and a little help and support, or perhaps just negotiations, might help to seal the deal and give a great boost to the area.

There has to be a balance with environment taxes. It is nice and cuddly to be able to say that we are in favour of being green and that all sounds fine, but heavy industries such as the steel industry and the oil refineries in my constituency rely heavily on economically priced energy. We need to achieve a balance.

The Chancellor has repeatedly mentioned the importance of the northern Lincolnshire economy as part of the northern powerhouse, but many in the area are still sceptical about that. Now is a real opportunity to show that the northern powerhouse, and the part that northern Lincolnshire can play in it, means something. We want real, tangible benefits. The community will struggle for some time to recover, so positive action, linked to the northern powerhouse initiative, can play a major part in the regeneration of the area and in supplying the jobs that are so urgently needed.