Sarah Jones MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Oct 2024 · Steel Industry · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) on securing this important debate, which I am glad that we are having. Let me be clear at the outset: the new Government were elected on a mandate to invest in the UK steel industry and turn around its decline, and that is exactly what we will do. As Members on both sides of the Chamber have echoed, the UK has always been a proud steelmaking nation; it has a rich heritage stretching back to the industrial revolution. My grandad worked in the tinplate factory fed by the steelworks of Port Talbot, and I think most of us in this place have connections, one way or another, to steel manufacturing. Yet, as has been said, steel has been a neglected industry for many years, with crude steel production declining by more than 50% in the last decade alone. Of course, that decline was brought into sharp focus when it was announced under the last Government that the blast furnaces would be closed at Port Talbot. This Government do not believe that decline is inevitable. The decline we have seen in recent years has been due to a lack of care from previous Governments, who did the bare minimum only when it was too late. We saw the insolvency of SSI—Sahaviriya Steel Industries—steelworks in Redcar in 2015 and the insolvency of British Steel in Scunthorpe in 2019, and we saw how close Tata came to closing its UK steel operations. That pathway risked jobs and emissions being offshored for the long term and risked making us heavily dependent on steel imports for our vital infrastructure and our energy and manufacturing sectors. This Government are taking a very different approach. This week, we launched a Green Paper on our industrial strategy. For that to have the greatest impact, we must be clear-eyed about the sectors that offer the highest growth opportunities for the economy and businesses, but steel is a foundational industry for practically every other important industry, from energy to infrastructure. We know that it is a vital component of our economy and our ambitions for growth, which is why we also need a steel strategy to determine the best steps forward to rebuild this hugely important industry. We need to lay out long-term policies and plans to ensure that the UK steel industry is not left behind as the world decarbonises, so last month the Government announced that we will bring forward a new steel strategy next spring. I hear the House’s impatience for that strategy and I understand it: there has been a long period of decline, and we need to turn that around. Given the £2.5-billion investment that we have committed to the strategy, however, it is right that we talk to experts and to politicians around the country, particularly those who have steel in their areas.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Steel Industry · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent .

• 16 Oct 2024 · Steel Industry · Hansard source

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  The process of selling the company is going through. That is a market situation, being dealt with in that way, so Government are not providing funding or anything such as that at this point. We are allowing the process to take its course, but we are obviously talking to all parties to do what we can to ensure that we get the right outcome. I have been talking to politicians from all four of the Harland and Wolff sites, as can be imagined, and there is uncertainty in each of those areas, whether that is in Scotland, Devon or Belfast. We are working hard to ensure the right outcome. To close my remarks, in steel, not to mention the wider economy, the inheritance of this Government from the previous Government was nothing short of a travesty. We had more than a decade of lurching from crisis to crisis, with no clear plan to safeguard the future of a competitive domestic steel industry. This Government are determined to change that, making the steel industry in this country fit for the future so that it is not left behind in a decarbonised world. The Government are on the side of Britain’s thousands of steelworkers. We have not talked about the other parts of the country where we also have steel production. Marcegaglia, which is in Sheffield, announced a couple of weeks ago that it is investing £50 million in a new electric arc furnace in Sheffield, so we have incumbents here in the UK that are doing well. The Government are determined to ensure the future of British steel. We are on the side of Britain’s thousands of steelworkers and we are working closely with our trade unions, experts and others to develop our steel strategy. We believe that steel will forge our future, not just our past, and I look forward to working with all hon. Members in this place to develop a steel strategy that sets us up for the next 10, 15 or 20 years to come.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Steel Industry · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for reading out a message from somebody watching the debate. We all agree that it is time for action and that is exactly what the Government seek. I will expand on our plans. The steel strategy will be developed and delivered in partnership with the steel sector and the trade unions, of course. It will work in lockstep with the Government’s industrial strategy. Our intention is to increase our UK capabilities, so that we can create a more vibrant, competitive steel sector. That will turn around the situation we inherited, where— I want to emphasise this—under-investment had resulted in dated infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), who knows so much about the steel industry, made the point about the efficiency and economy of the new technologies, and why blast furnaces have struggled to make money for the businesses that own them in this country. British Steel’s blast furnaces were built in 1938 and 1954. Both the blast furnaces at Port Talbot were built in the 1950s. They have become incredibly unproductive because they have not been invested in. The new technologies are simply more productive. If we do not keep up with what the rest of the world is doing, we simply will not be able to compete in the market. We inherited an industry on the brink. Nevertheless, within 10 weeks of coming into Government, we negotiated a better deal with Tata with better safeguards for workers and more money invested in their future. Our £2.5-billion fund for steel will ensure that we have a steel industry for the future. The Government’s ambition is to ramp up investment, strengthen our supply chains and create more well-paid jobs in the places they are needed. We talk of primary steel. With the help of experts, we will review the viability of technologies for the production of primary steel, including direct reduced iron.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Steel Industry · Hansard source

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  I think I was fairly clear. We have been in opposition. We want to produce primary steel in this country; the previous Government got us to a point where that is almost impossible without huge investment. We are supplying £2.5 billion of investment and looking, quite rightly, at the best way to spend that to create a viable steel future for this country. We are looking at direct reduced iron as part of our steel strategy, which the previous Government did not do. The UK’s ambition is to ramp up investment. Many hon. Members talked of the need to procure British steel in this country, and we are now in a situation where 95% of the steel procured by the UK Government for infrastructure is British, if the necessary type of steel is made in the UK. The issue is that we do not produce all the different and right types of steel, so we need to ensure that we use the Procurement Act 2023 as much as we can to drive economic growth in steel. I disagree with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness on whether the green agenda can drive up jobs—we think that it can. For example, the Korean company SeAH is building a factory in Teesside that will build monopiles, which are the big structures that go into the ocean and anchor wind turbines. It is currently building that structure with 30,000 tonnes of steel from British Steel. We want to get to a point where we are not only building those kinds of factories in this country but using British steel where we can to make the infrastructure. At the moment, we do not have a factory that makes turbines on the scale that we need for floating offshore wind, but SeAH is building that factory because it has an agreement with RWE, which will be running the turbines that it builds in future. That green job development into wind and renewable energy is driving our ability to build a factory in Teesside to create hundreds of jobs to build those monopiles, and we are using British steel. That is the kind of future that we want to see through the steel strategy; we are looking at those opportunities to bring new steel companies into this country and to find ways to drive up production in this country. I should address the issues holding us back, as they were mentioned in the debate. China and excess capacity is a huge issue that we should not underplay. China is now the biggest steel producer in the world and its unfair subsidies have led to massive steel over-production, which fuels global overcapacity and drives down prices. That is a global issue with local consequences that makes profitable steel production here in the UK much harder. That key global situation is helping to shape our future steel strategy and we will need to tackle that problem through things like the carbon border adjustment mechanism—CBAM—and ensure that we are working with a level playing field. Energy prices were mentioned by many Members, and for too long British energy-intensive industries, including the steel sector, have been held back by high electricity costs. Again, I disagree with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness: electricity prices are set by global gas prices and the problem is our dependence on fossil fuels, as well as the fact that we did not mitigate for that situation in this country at all. When all the prices shot up with the war in Ukraine, we were in a worse position than many countries around the world. The British industry supercharger that the previous Government developed, which the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) mentioned, will bring down electricity costs for the UK’s most energy intensive industries, but we know that we need to go further. It brings down only 60% of costs and there is still a disparity. We believe that, in an unstable world, cheap home-grown green energy is the future. That is what will drive down prices, reduce our exposure to the volatile fossil fuel market, protect bill payers and strengthen our energy independence. Fundamentally, that is what will bring down costs in the long term. Members also mentioned the challenges of decarbonisation. Tata and British Steel’s plans to invest in electric arc furnaces are driven by market conditions and the desire to reduce their carbon footprint—customers want greener steel. The UK is going to have a CBAM. If we were producing steel in the UK with blast furnaces, we would be massively inhibited because the EU is bringing in a CBAM, so the cost of exporting to the EU would be much higher. We have to deal with the world as we find it, which again is where we disagree with the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness. We cannot look back and try to re-create the past; we have to deal with the world as we find it, which means that we have to move towards those more efficient and greener energies. The EU, where 78% of our steel exports went in 2023—that is worth pointing out—will bring in its carbon border adjustment mechanism in 2027. We rely on exporting a lot of the steel we produce to the EU, and we would be at a massive disadvantage were we to carry on producing steel from blast furnaces. We have committed to a UK carbon border adjustment mechanism, which will give UK businesses the confidence that, when they invest in decarbonisation and electrification, they will not be at a disadvantage. That is important. On other issues mentioned by hon. Members, I should touch on Scunthorpe, because that is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. No one wants to see any job losses, and everyone wants to see the steel industry thrive. Through our strategy, that is what we want to do. For commercially confidential reasons, which I am sure hon. Members understand, I cannot talk about our conversations with the owners, but I reassure Members that we are having conversations all the time and that we are working unbelievably hard to get a solution for Scunthorpe and to give the certainty that the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham talked about. I completely understand the issue with the instability of the current situation, but all I can say to him is that we are doing all we can to work with the company on what the future will be.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Draft Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) (Amendment) Regulations 2024. As always, Sir Edward, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. This statutory instrument, which was laid before the House in draft on 30 July 2024, forms an important part of the Government’s commitment to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture, usage and storage. CCUS is critical to deliver clean energy and accelerate our net zero journey. As the Government recently announced, CCUS is vital as we enter into a new era of clean energy investment and jobs. By boosting this tried-and-tested technology, the UK has the potential to become a global leader in CCUS, delivering good jobs and economic growth for decades to come. A critical element of the CCUS mix is the successful deployment of power CCUS—gas-powered electricity generators fitted with carbon capture technology. [ Interruption. ] It is a bit more complicated than I just tried to indicate, but that is the gist. Power CCUS will complement the roll-out of renewable energy, providing the secure, flexible, non-weather-dependent, low-carbon electricity that is critical for a reliable energy system and for achieving our mission of clean power by 2030. The Government are committed to incentivising the deployment of power CCUS, and this statutory instrument will enable future payments to power CCUS plants under a business model called the dispatchable power agreement. The DPA is the contract framework to support power CCUS. It has been designed especially to incentivise investment in and the deployment of power CCUS in the UK. Dispatchable power agreements are a type of contract for difference. Like contracts for difference, they use the electricity supplier obligation to fund support payments. The levy is calculated and managed by the CfD counter-party—the Low Carbon Contracts Company—and collected from electricity suppliers such as Octopus or British Gas, which can pass the costs on to their customers if they choose to do so. In addition to the existing renewable CfD contract design, the DPA business model will provide an alternative payment based on a power CCUS generator’s availability. This availability payment is based on a generator’s availability in respect of electricity generation and carbon capture, and associated carbon dioxide transport and storage network costs. Under the DPA terms, payments will reduce proportionately to reflect any reduction in a generator’s CO 2 capture availability—in other words, its capture rate—or generation. A payment is made whether a generator dispatches power or not. This ensures that a CCUS power plant will run in response to market signals, ahead of unabated gas plants, but will not surpass cheaper renewables. This arrangement will strengthen our security of supply and ensure that a source of reliable low-carbon energy is available, but only when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. This statutory instrument enables only certain types of payments under the renewable CfD and DPA contracts to be funded by the supplier levy. Any future support offer to a project will be subject to rigorous negotiations with partners. Any decisions to award support will be subject to value for money and subsidy control tests to ensure the best value for money for consumers. The statutory instrument amends the Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) Regulations 2014. The changes will allow the payments made under the DPA to be funded by the supplier levy by changing how the supplier levy rate calculation works in the regulations. First, regulation 4 relates to the way that an electricity supplier’s daily contributions paid to the CfD counter-party are calculated. The statutory instrument amends regulation 4 to change the definition of “generation payments” so that the supplier obligation can be charged for payments relating to the activities of a dispatchable power plant fitted with CCUS technology—I hope everyone is still with me. The statutory instrument includes amendments to take into account the electricity generation capacity made available by a generating station on a given day; a generating station’s achieved carbon dioxide capture rate or capture capacity on a given day; the CO 2 transport and storage capital costs incurred from transporting such captured carbon dioxide; and, if required, the associated carbon dioxide transport and storage network shortfalls, proportionate to a DPA-supported generating station, that arose on that day. Secondly, regulation 7 of the 2014 regulations sets out how the CfD counterparty estimates the quarterly obligation payment that electricity suppliers will be required to provide to the counterparty. The statutory instrument amends regulation 7 to ensure the consideration of matters related to a DPA-supported generating station, including the carbon dioxide transport and storage network capital costs and, if required, revenue shortfalls, and the amount of carbon captured. Together, the changes allow a CfD counterparty to estimate and raise funds, and ultimately to pay a DPA-supported CCUS-enabled power plant. The existing payment calculation, based on the amount of electricity generated by renewable CfD-supported generating stations, is retained and unaffected. In summary, the statutory instrument represents a positive step forward in the delivery of the Government’s ambitious CCUS programme and 2030 clean power mission. It will lay the regulatory groundwork to encourage the deployment of power CCUS and begin to unlock the great economic and jobs opportunities. I commend the draft regulations to the House.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Draft Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I have a couple of points to make. The first carbon capture and storage commitment was made in 2009, I think, but cancelled in 2010. It was then set up again at some point in the mid-2010s and cancelled again. The shadow Minister referred to the explanatory notes; the key word there is “intention”. The intention was announced, but whether the actual funding behind it was available is a different point. That is where we disagree, so I say very strongly that the Secretary of State certainly did not mislead the House. I am glad to clear that up. On track 2, we are working at pace to get things done. The costs of carbon capture are significant, as the shadow Minister knows, and we need to make sure that we spend money in exactly the right way and are as careful as we can be with what is public money. We are working with both projects—indeed, we are working on expansion in the existing track 1 allocations and on track 2—and trying to get to a point at which the cost of carbon capture comes down and we have a market that becomes self-sustaining over time. But that will take some time. I thank the shadow Minister for his comments and hon. Friends and other Members for being here. The statutory instrument before us will incentivise the deployment of power CCUS and make a significant contribution to our CCUS programme and 2030 clean power mission. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

• 9 Oct 2024 · Draft Carbon Dioxide Transport and Storage (Determination of Turnover for Penalties) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Carbon Dioxide Transport and Storage (Determination of Turnover for Penalties) Regulations 2024. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell; it is also a pleasure to be on this side of the Committee Room for the first time. The regulations were laid before the House on 30 July under the affirmative process. These are technical but important regulations that form part of the implementation of the economic regulation framework for carbon dioxide transport and storage established in the Energy Act 2023. Carbon capture, usage and storage—CCUS, as we call it—is critical to delivering this Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower and to accelerating our journey to net zero. Last week was a historic week, as 142 years of coal-fired electricity generation came to an end. As one era ended, a new one began, as we announced £21.7 billion over 25 years for five carbon capture, usage and storage projects across two clusters. There are two transport and storage clusters: one in HyNet, in the north-west and north Wales, and one in the East Coast Cluster, in the north-east. Given the potentially monopolistic characteristics of carbon dioxide pipeline, storage and transport infra-structure, it is appropriate to have a framework of economic licensing and regulation to prevent anti-competitive behaviours by infrastructure operators and to ensure protections for users and consumers of the networks. Under this framework, an operator of a carbon dioxide transport and storage network requires a licence, which allows the operator to charge users of the network a fee for delivering and operating the network. The licence will determine the allowed revenue that a transport and storage operator may receive, which should reflect its efficient costs and a reasonable return on its capital investment. The economic regulator, Ofgem, has oversight of charges and will determine whether costs are allowed to be passed on to users, in line with the agreed economic framework. To ensure that the economic regulation framework operates as it should, Ofgem has powers of enforcement to ensure that licence conditions are adhered to and that there is appropriate redress for any regulatory breaches. Such redress includes the imposition of financial penalties by Ofgem on licence holders for licence contraventions, up to a maximum amount of 10% of company turnover. The regulations provide for how a company’s turnover is to be determined for the purposes of calculating the maximum amount of penalty that can be imposed. The amount of financial penalty will not automatically be set at the maximum; the maximum penalty of 10% of turnover is a cap, not a target. Any penalty imposed should be at a reasonable and appropriate level, taking account of all the circumstances of the case. Ofgem is required by primary legislation to prepare and publish a statement of policy setting out its approach to enforcement and penalties in the carbon dioxide transport and storage sector. This statement of policy should include the factors and circumstances that would be considered in deciding whether to impose a financial penalty and in determining the amount of any financial penalty. Ofgem has consulted on documents outlining how it will conduct its enforcement activities. The consultation closed in early July; Ofgem issued its consultation response and published the final version of those documents in September. To conclude, these are technical but important regulations, which provide clarity on what is meant by turnover when determining the amount of a financial penalty not exceeding the cap. The regulations represent an essential part of the economic regulation framework for carbon dioxide transport and storage—a regulatory framework that has been designed to overcome market barriers to deploying CCUS infrastructure in the UK and delivering our mission to accelerate our journey to net zero, while at the same time protecting the interests of users and consumers of this infrastructure. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

• 9 Oct 2024 · Draft Carbon Dioxide Transport and Storage (Determination of Turnover for Penalties) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I thank both hon. Members for their comments. On how this is regulated and how it works, I should say that the two transport and storage models that we have agreed to this week are collaborations involving quite large companies—for HyNet it is Eni, and for the East Coast Cluster it is BP, Equinor and Total. They have each set up their own separate companies as a group, and the turnover will be determined according to the revenue made within that, rather than, say, the whole of BP’s revenue, so it will be related to the transport and storage. If we have any concerns, there will be a process of engagement with the company at the earliest stages. It will not be that something terrible suddenly happens and there will be mitigation; there will be engagement between Ofgem and the transport companies, and there are ways for that to happen, so that we see can problems as they arise. The 10% financial penalty is a cap, but that is not the full amount; there will be a decision on what the percentage should be—it might be less than 10%, or it might be 10%. The level will be set according to lots of different factors—for example, whether there are mitigations will be one determining factor in deciding how much the costs are. There is a framework within which this will be set, which I hope will reassure the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, although we can happily send more details about that. I commend the regulations to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Workers in High-Carbon Sectors · Hansard source

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  We are committed to accelerating the just transition for workers in Britain to boost our energy security and ensure good, long-term jobs, especially in North sea communities. We will work with them and other industrial regions to develop a plan, ensuring those workers are the people who decarbonise our country.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Workers in High-Carbon Sectors · Hansard source

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  Last week was the historic week when 142 years of coal-fired electricity generation came to an end, and this week we have announced the new era of carbon capture and storage. We will work in a different way from the last Government, adopting a proactive approach to ensure that the transition works for people and that we create new jobs as well. At Grangemouth we provided a package of support for workers, and at Port Talbot we managed to negotiate a better deal than the last Government. We will use all the levers that we have—Great British Energy, the national wealth fund, the British jobs bonus and the office of green energy jobs that we have set up—to ensure that we get the transition right.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Workers in High-Carbon Sectors · Hansard source

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  Obviously the last Government did nothing about nuclear in 14 years, apart from coming up with a plan. We will ensure that nuclear is an important part of our country’s future, and we will be working to provide the right skills and jobs in the right places to deliver that.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Job Creation: Industrial Communities · Hansard source

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  The Government have two key missions: to become an energy superpower, and to grow the economy. Great British Energy will help us deliver on both those missions. The Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), will be taking the Great British Energy Bill through Committee today, and I am excited for the job creation potential in our industrial communities. From engineers to welders, and from electricians to project managers, Great British Energy will be powered by people across all the nations and regions of this great country.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Job Creation: Industrial Communities · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank him for his support. I doubt anybody would disagree with him on the benefits of our announcements on carbon capture and storage, which will create 4,000 jobs in the short term, with carbon capture more broadly creating up to 50,000 jobs over the next decade or so. [Interruption.] The Opposition Front Benchers chuckle, but I wonder whether, instead of dismissing that number of jobs, they might welcome them alongside Government Members. Alongside carbon capture, Great British Energy, our national wealth fund and our British jobs bonus, we are putting in place the levers to encourage growth across our country, and the Climate Change Committee estimates that up to 725,000 net new jobs could be created in low-carbon sectors by 2030.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Job Creation: Industrial Communities · Hansard source

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  I agree with the GMB in its warm congratulations for our announcements yesterday to deliver carbon capture and storage across the country. We are of course working closely with our trade union colleagues. It is interesting: in opposition, the Conservatives suddenly quote the unions, when they refused to even meet them in government. We work very closely with the GMB and all our trade unions to ensure that we have a just energy transition and that we are creating the jobs and skills of the future by becoming a clean energy superpower.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Job Creation: Industrial Communities · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend: it is a fantastic opportunity. Publicly owned Great British Energy will partner with industry to help us to deliver our mission of clean power by 2030. I have been reading about the green innovation corridor, and I am interested to see what it will deliver. Working in partnership with the private sector, we can rebuild jobs across the west midlands and far beyond.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend asks an important question. Of course, we and the Opposition have fundamentally different views. We believe in an industrial strategy that will help to deliver our supply chains. We believe in Great British Energy, and we believe in a sovereign wealth fund, which so many other countries have and the previous Government failed to deliver. We will make sure we have resilient supply chains that create jobs, deliver energy security and maximise the economic benefits of the transition.

• 8 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question. After 14 years of failure and inaction, we now have a Government who believe in working with our trade unions, who have the backing of our trade unions, and who want to work to create good jobs in the industries of the future. Our announcement on carbon capture, which was groundbreaking and world beating, will deliver just that.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Electric Vehicles: Chinese Share of Market · Hansard source

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  No, it has not. The hon. Gentleman is chuntering again from a sedentary position. It has not asked for that. This is something we are monitoring. We will work closely with the industry and do the right thing, and if we need to intervene we will intervene. As I said, the UK’s economy and industry differ very much from those of other countries, and 80% of UK auto production is exported. It is not that we have the risk of EVs in the other direction. The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) needs to recognise the part that his Government played in the development of these matters over many years, and be reassured that we are working closely with our colleagues to make sure we do the right thing.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Electric Vehicles: Chinese Share of Market · Hansard source

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  China’s role in the automotive industry is growing, and that invites risks and opportunities. We are working closely with other Government Departments, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, to analyse how this impacts the UK. Where we need to act, we will do so, and any action taken on Chinese electric vehicles has to be the right one, including for our UK industry.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Electric Vehicles: Chinese Share of Market · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his supplementary question. As I said, we are working closely with our colleagues across Government to make sure we have the right intelligence and can make the right decisions where we need to act. He will be aware that other countries are introducing tariffs and taking a range of measures. Our sectors are very different from those of other countries—we are not the same as the US or the EU—and we need to respond in the right way when it comes to electric vehicles. For example, 80% of the vehicles we manufacture in the UK are exported, so our challenges are different. However, the hon. Gentleman is right to raise these important issues, including the need to look at critical minerals and supply chains, and at how we can ensure we are getting as many parts as possible from countries with which we want to have a different relationship. That is why we have set up things such as the solar taskforce to ensure that when it comes to solar panels, for example, we are using the supply chains as best we can to make sure there is not a global monopoly and that we are economically secure as a country.

• 5 Sept 2024 · Electric Vehicles: Chinese Share of Market · Hansard source

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  I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that until recently his party was in government, and inward investment from China grew over four times since 2014, so I will take no lessons from him on these issues. The automotive industry, which I work with closely and meet regularly, has not asked for what he suggested—

• 5 Sept 2024 · UK Steel Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. As I said, we are looking at DRI and other ways of making virgin steel that mean we can both— [ Interruption. ] I am happy to have further conversations with the shadow Minister, rather than shout across the House at each other. I am happy to have conversations about how we can make sure that we both retain virgin steel production and adhere to our climate commitments.

• 5 Sept 2024 · UK Steel Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  It is hard to know where to begin in responding to that. The previous Government allowed steel to run down. The previous Government did not believe in an industrial strategy. The previous Government did not believe in boosting our supply chains. The previous Government did not understand the importance of the steel industry to our national security and the communities we serve across the country. This Government do understand the importance of steel: that is why we are committing £2.5 billion from the national wealth fund, on top of the £500 million set aside for Port Talbot, and we will develop a strategy that enables the steel industry to grow. The shadow Minister knows that I cannot comment on commercial and confidential conversations that we are having. I can reassure him, however, that we are talking regularly with British Steel, that we are talking regularly with Tata, that we are in deep negotiations with them, that we are talking with the local community, that we are involved with the trade unions—something that the previous Government did not believe in but suddenly seem to think important—and that we will get the best deal for workers and for the steel industry. It is a shame that we were not in government five years ago, because we are where we are with some of these conversations. The way the previous Government approached industry was to wait for things to get so dire that they had to spend millions of pounds of public money trying to booster something, whereas our approach is to build the industry up and put the right levers in place, and we will see success that way.

• 5 Sept 2024 · UK Steel Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Of course, if we do not take measures to decarbonise and tackle the climate crisis, the costs to this country will be infinitely higher. This is not a choice. [ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) disagrees, but we need to make sure we can decarbonise in a way that supports our industry to make that transition, which is exactly what we are doing. The point of an industrial strategy is to lay out a plan so that the industry gets the support it needs, so that investors understand the plan and so that, by working together, we can make sure we decarbonise. The Government are supporting that where we can and pulling the levers we can. We are supporting the industry to do the opposite of what happened under the previous Government, which is grow.