Steel industry bill clears the Commons
The steel industry (special measures) bill has cleared its first hurdle after
MPs approved it at all stages. It will now proceed to the House of Lords for debate and passage.
Key events
Starmer meets British Steel workers on visit to Scunthorpe
The prime minister met British Steel workers near Scunthorpe shortly after the steel industry (special measures) bill passed the House of Commons unopposed.
Keir Starmer told the steelworkers:
You are the people who have kept this going.
You and your colleagues for years have been the backbone of British Steel, and it’s really important that we recognise that.
And I felt it was really important today, having been in parliament this morning, to come straight up here to see you face to face to have that discussion with you.
Because this shouldn’t be a remove thing that’s happening down in Westminster, in parliament, it should be something that’s living and breathing. It’s your jobs, your lives, your communities, your families.
The PA news agency reports that the steelworkers thanked the prime minister for the government’s action, with one adding:
We’re not there yet, we’ve still got a lot of hard work to do.
Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, said Labour had acted on British Steel because they were “terrified” of his party in its traditional northern heartlands, reports the PA news agency.
Speaking outside Westminster, he said his message to the government was:
Half a thank you for doing something. I was out with those Scunthorpe steelworkers on Tuesday. I bet the ‘Spoons’ tonight in Scunthorpe will be absolutely rammed.
I wish I could go and join them again because they were so anxious and they are proud working people. So there’s half a thank you for that but frankly you can’t work with Jingye, you have got to nationalise it and try and plan a future.
He added:
Saviours of the world! Suddenly we are now an industrial powerhouse! Well talk about leaving it a bit late. I was in Scunthorpe on Tuesday and it was pretty obvious when we came out. There were literally three working days left to save primary steel production in Britain.
They’ve done it on a Saturday because they wanted it to be dramatic and they wanted to say ‘Look we’re the Labour party, we’re on the same side as workers’ and they are terrified of what the Reform vote is doing to the north-west, the north-east, areas like that. So that’s why they’ve done it.
He added:
It’s just a sticking plaster. Frankly if Jingye, the Chinese owners, are bad faith actors, which I have believed them to be for five years, and today the business secretary said they are not acting in good faith, they should have just done the whole hog today, nationalised it and then tried to find a way of selling it on.
Labour peer Prem Sikka said the government was trying to avoid explicitly saying it would nationalise British Steel, but said it should be the long-term outcome, reports the PA news agency.
He said:
My lords, the minister said that the government seeks to take control of blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, without taking control of British Steel.
It’s really trying to avoid the words nationalisation and public ownership, but that is really where we are heading. British Steel’s most recent accounts show falling turnover, increasingly losses and negative net worth. It is bankrupt and the compensation should be very little, if any.
Steel is essential for civil and defence industries. In a world of trade wars, we need to be self sufficient. We need permanent public ownership of the steel industry.
He added:
One of the reasons for the current crisis is that privatisation of essential industries has failed.
The 1988 privatisation of steel by the Conservative government was completely divorced from any industrial strategy, need for jobs and self reliance.
House of Lords adjourned for an hour to allow peers to put forward bill amendments
The bill has received its second reading and the House of Lords has been adjourned for an hour to allow time for peers to put forward amendments.
Emergency legislation arrived in the House of Lords after clearing the Commons earlier on Saturday.
The Conservatives said it was “deeply regrettable” MPs were unable to vote on amendments to the steel industry (special measures) bill.
There was no time left for MPs to debate amendments tabled on Saturday, with the deputy speaker, Caroline Nokes, adding:
Amendments which are not debated are not subsequently selected for separate decision.
The shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Alex Burghart, on a point of order, said:
It is obviously deeply regrettable that the government wasn’t prepared for the eventualities that it has faced.
We know they weren’t because the bill wasn’t ready until 9.30am and an obvious omission from the bill is a sunset clause and many members here today have spoken in favour of a sunset clause and indeed ministers opposite have suggested they want this legislation to be time limited.
Consequently it’s deeply regrettable that it sounds as though the house will not have an opportunity to vote on a sunset clause.
The House of Lords will consider the bill on Saturday afternoon and any changes made to it by peers would then be sent to the House of Commons for MPs to consider.
While the steel industry (special measures) bill is being debated in parliament, a march to save British steel has taken place this afternoon in Scunthorpe. Here are some images via the newswires:
The former navy chief Alan West said the UK production of virgin steel was vital to national security, especially the military, and backed the government’s swift action, likening it to cold war plans to destroy Soviet submarines.
Speaking in the House of Lords, the Labour former security minister said:
In the cold war when we used to work on how we were going to kill Soviet submarines, and we would have been jolly good at it I hasten to add, I am glad we didn’t have a war but we would have been good at it, the slang word for it was ‘fastest with the mostest’.
In other words, you got a sniff of a submarine, you moved really quickly, and I think the government here have moved really quickly when they have seen something needs to be done, and then you put every effort, everything you had into that because you needed to kill it.
On that issue I would say there are things that need to be done and I am not sure that all of them are being done and I do have a concern about the cost of energy.
Iain Duncan Smith has said it was “right” for parliament to sit on a Saturday to preserve jobs, but warned the steel industry (special measures) bill “does give very vast powers” to the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds.
The former Conservative party leader told the Commons:
I therefore do urge [Jonathan Reynolds] to have another look at the sunset clause.
I raised this earlier because it’s not saying ‘we don’t trust you’. It’s saying sometimes government gets taken down sidetracks, and before you know what’s happened, the powers are beginning to be used for the wrong purpose.
Duncan Smith later said:
Far too many countries like China have abused the rules of the free market, have subsidised their industries ridiculously, and have used slave labour to produce products. When that happens, the free market is dead.
He added:
China now itself is suffering from an overproduction of steel.
Their own housing industry has gone static on them, and they were one of the biggest users of the steel produced by China. Where is that steel going to go?
And it’s no surprise, by the way, that a Chinese company Jingye is involved in this, because by pushing forward to shut down the blast furnaces in the UK, they know that we will have to buy slab steel from China. This is not a coincidence. This is all part of the plan.
Steel industry bill clears the Commons
The steel industry (special measures) bill has cleared its first hurdle after
MPs approved it at all stages. It will now proceed to the House of Lords for debate and passage.
Westminster “is only interested in Westminster”, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has alleged as he asked why the steel industry (special measures) bill only applies in England.
Referring to a Scottish oil refinery, Flynn told the Commons:
Whilst the government mobilises every effort to save British Steel, it allows Grangemouth to fall on the backburner.
He asked:
Why is this not being extended to Scotland? Why is Grangemouth not being included? Why is the smelter up at Lochaber not being included? Why the DL steelworks not being included? The answer why they are not being included is because Westminster is only interested in Westminster.
It is not interested in Scotland. And I will not be shouted down by the members opposite, because they need to hear the truth.
Liberal Democrat Wales spokesperson David Chadwick said:
When Welsh steel communities were crying out for support, when Tata Steel announced over 2,800 job losses in Port Talbot last year, the largest steelworks in the country, a key strategic asset, the manufacturing heart of south Wales, there was no recall of parliament, no Saturday sitting, no emergency legislation, and no rapid mobilisation of government to save the day, this despite every warning sign being there.
Chadwick said his grandfather worked in the blast furnaces at Port Talbot, adding:
It gave him the opportunity to set up his own business, in his case, a waste management company, and that’s what’s really at risk now, and that’s what’s really withering away in south Wales.
It’s not just the jobs on the steelworks floor, but that entire network of small businesses, tradespeople and suppliers that rely on the steel industry’s presence in our communities.
Opposition parties have tabled eight amendments to the government’s steel industry (special measures) bill.
They include three from the SNP and Plaid Cymru extending the bill’s scope to other parts of the UK beyond England, two from the Conservatives and one from the Liberal Democrats imposing time limits for using the powers in the bill, and one from the UK calling for the immediate nationalisation of affected steelworks.
Minister refuses to comment on report Chinese owners blocked from entering plant
Conservative MP Graham Stuart asked in the Commons:
It is reported that Jingye management have been turned away by workers, and indeed the Humberside police, so can the minister tell the house whether or not that is the policy of the government – to bar Jingye management from going on to the premises?
Sarah Jones, business minister, replied:
I am not going to comment from the dispatch box on reports that have been made during this debate.
Stuart could be referring to a report by the Times today that said steelworkers at Scunthorpe had blocked a group of Chinese executives who were trying to access critical parts of the plant on Saturday morning.
Citing company insiders, the Times reported that representatives from Jingye came to the site at about 8am, but were met with a “heroic” effort by workers to block their path to offices. It added that Humberside police are understood to have been called to the scene with the Chinese delegation forced to leave.
China buying and then closing British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant may be in Beijing’s interest “in a competitive world”, a Labour former defence secretary has suggested.
Backing the government’s intervention to safeguard UK steel production, Lord Reid of Cardowan hit out at Tory criticism and argued it was the previous Conservative government that had “sold this industry to the Chinese”.
He said:
We are constantly told not least by the party opposite that there is no firewall between the Chinese government and Chinese industry.
Did it never occur to anyone in the last government that it maybe, in a competitive world, in the interest of the Chinese government to purchase and then close down the British steel industry?
And if that wasn’t considered then there was a gross omission of responsibility, I am afraid, by the previous government.”
UK Steel – steel industry bill right move to keep blast furnaces alight at Scunthorpe
In a statement, UK Steel director general, Gareth Stace, said:
UK Steel welcomes the steel industry (special measures) bill, which will allow the British Steel site at Scunthorpe to maintain operations while government negotiations with the company continue.
In particular, we appreciate the decisive action of the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, who has recognised the urgency of protecting our industry with this unprecedented recall of parliament.
A blast furnace is a dynamic piece of machinery. If the fires go out, it is nigh on impossible for it to be brought back to life – so a solution to keep them running is time-critical. It is, therefore, vital that the blast furnaces remain operational during negotiations, providing some security and breathing space in the short term, and this legislation will ensure this can happen.
We encourage the government and British Steel to work at pace on a long-term solution for the Scunthorpe site, which is critical in supporting thousands of jobs, national security of supply, the wider UK economy and many more people and communities in the supply chain.”
We have a statement from Alasdair McDiarmid, assistant general secretary of Community Union, the steelworkers union.
He said:
Community Union welcomes and wholeheartedly backs the Labour government’s decisive action to take control of British Steel.
The government has sought to negotiate constructively and even offered to buy raw materials to stop the blast furnaces closing, but Jingye have shut down every avenue to keep the furnaces running and avoid imminent job losses.
Moreover, Jingye has not consulted in good faith with the unions, and they now need to get out of the road to give space to all those who want to see British Steel succeed.
Today’s intervention by the UK Labour government is a first step towards securing a sustainable future for British Steel and steel communities like Scunthorpe.
We will continue to work with the government to deliver this future and build a thriving UK steel industry which supports thousands of good jobs and the economic security of our country.”
Everyone should worry about the cost to the taxpayer of the emergency legislation being debated in parliament, shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins warned.
Speaking outside parliament, she said legislation does not contain the detail needed to “safeguard jobs and to protect the steel industry”.
Atkins said:
I think we should all worry about the cost on the taxpayer and this is why we have been asking how much is this going to cost, and at the moment we don’t have an answer from the government.
How on earth can they put a piece of legislation of this importance before parliament rushing it through in less than there hours in order to safeguard jobs and livelihood?
How can they do that without telling us, the taxpayer, what it will cost, what our future liabilities will be, what are the prospects of the private sector becoming involved again given how badly the Government has handled the economy since the disastrous budget at the end of last year.”
She added:
They have not provided us with the detail we need in order to ensure that their plans will hold water and will actually do what we all want the legislation to do, which is to safeguard jobs and to protect the steel industry.”
