Steel Industry — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Mixed Topics
Frank Roy (Labour, Centre-left): I will not be taking any interventions so that as many Members as possible can speak I welcome today’s debate and the members of Community, the Union for Life, who are in the Public Gallery. I especially welcome the general-secretary, Roy Rickhuss, and make a special mention of Ross Clark, who has travelled more than 400 miles from Dalzell steel plant in Motherwell to hear this debate There are two elements to the steel industry: the sector itself and the people who work in it. But who is a steel worker? Who works in our plants up and down the country? A steel worker is the office worker, cleaner, canteen assistant, instrument mechanic, electrician, welder, crane driver, fork-lift driver, locomotive driver, engineer and the list goes on and on, and that is before we start to talk about the actual process workers themselves—the people who operate the iron ore, limestone and coal yards, sinter plants, coke ovens and blast furnaces. When that iron is made it is transferred to the steel plants, the degasser units, the basic oxygen steel plants and the continuous casting plants, until we get to the raw material called steel. Then the mills shape that raw material that is so badly needed in our country—the hot strip mill, the slab mill, the plate mill, the section mill, the wire rod mill, the welded pipe mill and the seamless pipe mill. Added to those are the small foundries and fabricators and steel stockholders throughout the United Kingdom. These are the most important components of what we call our steel industry But it is the men and women who collectively are our most vital component, the steel workers themselves. The people who ensure that we have steel are the people who ensure that we have oil rigs in the North sea; that we have pipes bringing gas and oil from the furthest north; that we have a Channel tunnel reinforced with steel in the south; that we have the ships that sail from our ports, the planes that fly from our airports, the buses and cars that drive on our roads, the trains that go along our rail tracks, the bridges, the buildings and the white goods. I could go on and on. That is the steel industry of the 21st century The one thing that our steel workers have in common is the need to make sure that their steel industry and their livelihoods are supported and protected by both Government and industry alike. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Community union, which today is launching its new stand up for steel campaign with four specific pillars that need addressing. It calls on the Government to support our UK steel industry by bringing forward the compensation package for energy intensive industries to help the industry become competitive and using Government procurement to deliver for UK foundation industries I am reminded of an earlier reference to the contract for the new Forth road bridge. Just to make sure that hon. Members know what happened, the Scottish Government gave that contract to companies in Poland, Spain and China. That steel came 7,500 nautical miles from Shanghai to Edinburgh. There is a plate mill in Motherwell called Dalzell and Clydebridge just a couple of miles down the road. Its steel could have come 35 miles along the M8 motorway, but, no, the nationalist Government decided to look after the interests of Scotland by looking after the interests of Shanghai steelworkers. We have heard much about the intended purchase of long products, but I will leave that to others to expand on As a former steelworker of nearly 15 years, I know from personal experience the worries of potential redundancy from an industry that workers have spent most of their life working in. Their skills are those of a steelworker, melting materials to a red hot liquid, shaping cold steel in a rolling mill that will last for more than a century. Now is the time for the Government to stand up for our steelworkers, to stand up for steel. Our steelworkers deserve nothing less.