Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Everybody in this House recognises the role and contribution of community pharmacies up and down the country, but it is also right that we look at how we are spending NHS money. That is why the Government are looking carefully at this whole issue. If the hon. Gentleman supports community pharmacies, perhaps he ought to have a word with the Leader of the Opposition, because his right hon. Friend’s policy is to nationalise the health service completely, lock, stock and barrel—GP surgeries, Macmillan nurses and community pharmacies.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Q11. May I welcome the fact that next week this Government will finally make a decision on airport capacity in the south-east, which eluded three of my right hon. Friend’s predecessors and will help to boost trade? Does the Prime Minister agree that, on this issue, substance matters more than symbolism, and will she outline to the House her timetable for implementation?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, and he is absolutely right. This month, the Government will take a decision on the appropriate site for extended airport capacity in the south-east. The subject has been debated, discussed and speculated about for 40 years; this Government will take a decision, but then a formal process has to be undertaken. The Government will identify their preferred site option. That will go to a statutory consultation, and then the Government will consider the results of that consultation and introduce an airports national planning statement on which the House will vote.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Q7. The French armed police who stormed the Bataclan and killed those vile, murderous scum are heroes, and so are the British armed police who protect our public spaces and the people. Will the Prime Minister send a note of unequivocal support today to those officers on patrol, and ensure that in next week’s review, they have the resources they need to keep us safe?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We ask the police every day to take risks on our behalf. Let me thank the police who policed so effectively the game at Wembley last night.

In terms of what the French police have done, I think the House would welcome an update. We have seen the news of a police operation in Paris this morning. Two terrorist suspects died, including a female suspect who blew herself up. Seven arrests are reported to have been made. This operation has now finished. As the French Interior Minister has said, we should all acknowledge the bravery of the French police in dealing with what is a very challenging situation.

I hope there can be consensus across the House—I mean right across the House—on this. If we are confronted with a situation like this, the British police should not be in any doubt. If you have a terrorist who is threatening to kill people, you can—indeed, you must—use lethal force.

Steel Industry

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Like the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), I have a Caparo steel factory in my constituency. The 200 workers there are obviously facing troubled times, and it is vital that, as part of the wider steel strategy, we look into the issues affecting them.

Yesterday, we on the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee held an evidence session on the state of the steel industry. I am grateful to all the expert witnesses who came along and gave their fantastic evidence. Let me start with the positives. It was welcome to hear the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise, the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) tell the Committee that she considered the UK steel industry to be of strategic importance and enormous value to British manufacturing. Her predecessors in that post would not have said that. I fear, however, that others in Government, including the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Business Secretary, do not necessarily feel the same way. Therein lies the problem. We need that strategic priority in the light of the challenges facing the industry.

The UK steel industry is in grave crisis. All the expert witnesses yesterday said that they could not recall a more serious time for the survival of their industry. Since the summer, a fifth of the workforce in the UK steel industry have either lost their jobs or are at risk of doing so. The tragedy of job losses for the individual steelworkers, their families and their communities is immense, but the loss of the skills, the capability and the competitiveness in such a strategic industry will affect British manufacturing for decades. Gareth Stace, director of UK Steel, gave us a vivid description of the situation yesterday. He told us that the industry was like

“a patient on the operating table. We are bleeding very quickly and unless it’s stopped very soon we are likely to die”.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

On that point, has the hon. Gentleman been struck by the relative slowness of the European Union’s response to Chinese dumping, compared with the speed of the response of the United States?

[Mr Wright]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment, and I will come to that in a moment. He is a fantastic member of the BIS Select Committee, and he was incredibly supportive yesterday.

This is not necessarily a question of the Government waving a magic wand. Global forces are affecting the steel industry. I am not suggesting that the UK Government have a disproportionate influence over what is happening in the global steel industry, but there are things that they can do. The Minister rightly said that she saw steel as a strategic industry because it acts as a foundation for many other parts of the manufacturing value chain. I agree with her on that. A modern steel industry is at the heart of a dynamic and innovative economy.

I would suggest that the role of the Government is to level the playing field for British-based steel makers and ensure that they do not face costs and pressures that our competitors do not face. The role of the Government is also to go out and bat for the British steel industry on the European and world stage. Alas, it emerged clearly from our Select Committee inquiry yesterday that, despite their warm words, the Government have been slow and reactive and that, despite their protestations, they have not prioritised the steel industry in a way that its strategic importance requires.

The Government have been exposed as having been left baffled and battered by the forces affecting global steel. That is perhaps inevitable, given the scale and gravity of the challenge, but it is a challenge that the industry has been raising with Ministers for some time. Plant closures and the loss of jobs, steelmaking skills and capacity could have been lessened had the Government been more on the front foot and responded more swiftly.

I have enormous respect for the Minister, but she sounded like Elvis Presley in the Committee yesterday when she told us that she wanted a little less conversation and a little more action, please. Her words were welcome, but it became abundantly clear that, in the main, words are all we have. Words are not going to save the British steel industry.

At the steel summit on 16 October, we were provided with an excellent analysis of the state of the industry from its representatives. We were provided with a clear and achievable five-point plan on factors such as energy costs, business rates and local content in procurement projects. However, that analysis was nothing new. It has been known about for weeks and months, if not years. The Government were familiar with the asks from industry long before 16 October, so why was urgent action not taken sooner in such a strategic industry?

The Minister’s insistence on a change in policy on voting in Europe on dumping is welcome, but why did industry tell us yesterday that we in the UK were out on a limb in Europe in not acting in a co-ordinated way on cheap Chinese imports? In response to the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), he will recall that the Select Committee was told yesterday that an astonishing 94% of all the cheap Chinese steel coming to Europe comes to Britain, at a time when our domestic industry is dying. We have put up the white flag for our steel industry in response to the Chinese red flag. That is not appropriate.

We have been left in no doubt about the gravity of the situation. We may not even have reached the bottom of the job losses and plant closures. It is not too melodramatic to measure the survival of the British steel industry in weeks rather than decades. We do not have time to reflect or reassess; the Government have to move from warm words to action, and they have to do it now.