UK Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-09-17
Topic: Labor
Margaret Ferrier (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree; they are doing what they can Currently there are 330 people employed between Clydebridge and the Dalzell operation in Motherwell, which is far less than the numbers at the height of the Ravenscraig site. In May of this year Tata announced that it would have to reassess its long products mills to strengthen the competitiveness of its UK operations as a whole. The hot-strip mill in Port Talbot has benefited from this, as quality and capacity upgrades have been carried out. The mill at Newport will also come out of production owing to financial constraints The Tata Group, which runs these sites, was recently subject to a takeover bid by an American industrial consortium, the Klesch Group. However, after due diligence no offer was made. Both Tata and Klesch have said that the business has been struggling owing to significant pressure globally. The union official for Community has conceded that the plate market is really slow and that the union has known that there will be losses to come at the Scottish site, and notes that the situation remains very concerning. They had hoped the market would pick up; however, this has evidently not been the case It has been the unions who have been fighting the case for these workers and trying to ensure that there are no redundancies. However, the UK Government must do more. The unions have already met the Scottish Government and are to meet them again regarding any assistance that they can offer. We need to ensure that the plants in Scotland remain open and remain sustainable, adding jobs to our communities All job losses are devastating news for the steel industries. Many communities rely on them for employment. Every job lost, and every single redundancy, tells its own personal story. We must do whatever we can to protect those jobs The UK Government’s flippant "leave it to the market" attitude will destroy this industry. Action needs to be taken, and it needs to be taken now. That accords with the comment of the aforementioned Klesch, who walked away from buying Tata, that its 6,000 workers were "being led to the slaughterhouse" by the Government’s failure to address high energy costs or stem a growing tide of cheap Chinese imports. He insisted that the lack of Government subsidies and their lack of industrial policy are hampering the UK’s industry This was echoed by Sue Lewis of Community, who has said that the UK Government should have done far more to support the steel industry to meet rising energy prices, while the Welsh First Minister said the UK Government should do more to help. The UK Government have given £35 million to steel firms to offset their costs, but that simply is not enough. Mr Klesch said that the UK Government needed to address these issues urgently, in tandem with other European countries, if they wanted to retain a steel industry. He said: "Whoever gets the cheapest input costs wins the roses. You have Middle Eastern countries giving free gas to aluminium smelters and the Chinese government supporting their steel industry. We don’t have a level playing field." I agree with that assessment and believe we should be doing more It is unfortunate that, as the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise has said: "Neither the Office for National Statistics nor other governmental statistical sources make such forecasts for steel. The Government forecasts can influence markets and therefore must be able to be robust." However, there is an unwillingness to share information and the Government should be able to calculate robust figures. If they do that, we need to be able to work towards this target or even to try to outdo any expectations. Today, I will submit a series of written questions to the relevant Departments to ensure that Ministers will converse with Tata in Scotland and with the local communities The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) stated yesterday that he wanted to see the Prime Minister do more in Redcar. I welcome that, but I also want the Government to do more throughout the UK. The time for action is now, and I will happily work across the Chamber to deliver a galvanised response to the steel industry’s pleas for help.