Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make it his policy to help reduce energy prices for (a) the UK steel industry and (b) other energy intensive industries in the UK to bring them in line with their EU counterparts.

We recognise that our industrial electricity costs are currently higher than some of our EU counterparts, but we already provide substantial compensation to eligible energy intensive industries (EIIs), including sectors such as steel, for the cumulative cost of energy and climate change policies, reducing the impact of these policies on their electricity bills by up to around 80%. This package of relief for EIIs is worth over £800 million since 2013. Ensuring that the UK is competitive on the energy costs faced by manufacturing industry is an important element of our Industrial Strategy.