Industrial Strategy Consultation

Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The creative industries, together, have some claim to be Britain’s most successful sector in recent years—they have been growing very strongly. Sir Peter Bazalgette has agreed to work with the industries to look at what they need to build on that success in the future and to continue to create the great jobs they have produced. I look forward to that work.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome the Government’s new industrial strategy Green Paper, although it implicitly admits that the past six and a half years without an industrial strategy have been wasted. Having said that, the Materials Processing Institute has made a bid to be a metals catapult, and there is no mention of carbon capture and storage. Those issues are critical to the ability of any energy-intensive industries to go forward. Of real concern is certain BEIS civil servants’ views of virgin steelmaking capacity, and certain advice going to Ministers in relation to importing steel, rather than relying primarily on British-made steel, whether that is from Scunthorpe or Port Talbot. Will the Secretary of State please get up at the Dispatch Box and rule that out?