Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department is taking to help support (a) sustainable growth and (b) competitiveness of the steel sector in the context of recent trends in the level of Chinese steel exports.

Our support to the UK steel sector is clear, we have introduced effective safeguards against non-market economies, helped public projects procure more UK made steel and we are launching the British Industry Supercharger to bring energy costs closer in line with those charged across the world’s major economies.

This Government has agreed a £500m grant as part of a larger £1.25bn commitment by Tata Steel to transform and secure a sustainable future at their Port Talbot works. We have also offered a generous support package to British Steel.

More widely, the UK has a highly skilled workforce, a supportive tax and business environment which is more competitive than our EU neighbours, an increasingly decarbonised energy grid for green steel, and plentiful supplies of steel scrap.