Protecting Britain’s Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2021-06-21
Topic: Foreign Trade
Ranil Malcolm Jayawardena (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady did not answer the earlier question from my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) either Extending the deadline for a decision is not an option, and extension of the safeguard on product categories would expose Britain to challenge from other member countries of the WTO for non-compliance with the agreement on safeguards, which, as I warned a moment ago, may lead to a WTO decision requiring the United Kingdom to revoke the measure in its entirety I thought the Labour party understood these principles. After all, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), the then shadow Trade Minister, criticised President Trump for imposing "protectionist tariffs that the rest of the world believes are illegal under WTO rules."—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 39.] Maybe that was Labour’s policy then and this is its policy now. Perhaps the Opposition were against the policies of President Trump then and support the policies of President Trump today. Either way, they do not have the British national interest at heart. The Labour party is showing once again that it is a protest party, lacking in competence and understanding of the issues. Labour may have changed its leader, but it poses a clear risk to our country Turning to our friends in Europe and America, we continue to have discussions with the steel sector to understand its concerns about the outcome of the EU’s steel safeguard review. We recognise the harm caused by the unfair and unjustified US tariffs levied on our steel industry under section 232. It is fake news to suggest that our steel industry threatens the viability of American steel producers or that it contributes to global excess capacity in the market. Trade barriers such as these are what bring the rules-based international trading system to its knees, yet that is the sort of approach that the Labour party is advocating tonight. We remain disappointed at the continued imposition of such tariffs and are pressing our American counterparts for an urgent and permanent resolution. After working to date to de-escalate the Boeing-Airbus dispute by agreeing to suspend retaliatory tariffs for five years, we now want to shift their attention to the unjustified section 232 tariffs and work with them to agree a fair, permanent resolution for British industry We will continue to deliver for the British people, and that is why we are reviewing the Secretary of State’s powers already, exploring and consulting on how we might legitimately be able to strengthen them. That is why we are working closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ensure that trade remedies measures are up to date in the current context, not least following the pandemic. In the event of there being increased imports of unfairly subsidised products into the United Kingdom, we will not hesitate to take action to defend the industry using anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs. That shows our resolve to improve our domestic toolkit and to use the tools at our disposal to tackle market-distorting practices, but rushing through changes to legislation, posing a risk to industry in the process, as Labour would have us do, is not the answer.