Sarah Jones MP: speeches

Speeches

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  The ridiculous energy costs that the hon. Gentleman refers to are a result of 14 years of Conservative Government—we need to be really clear about that. His point about the steel strategy, which has already been made, is reasonable. Of course, Members are really keen for us to bring that strategy forward as soon as possible, but I repeat what I have said: we are looking at spending up to £2.5 billion, and there is absolutely no way that I, the Secretary of State, the Chancellor or the Prime Minister could come to this House and say, “Here is a steel strategy that we have written on the back of a fag packet after a couple of weeks thinking about it.” We need to do this right, and that is what we are doing.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  Darlington and the Tees valley are excellent places in which to invest, so I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. In many parts of our country, steel is in the bones of our communities, but of course, this is not about looking back—it is about looking forward. In the future, we will need steel for not just clean energy, but for building the 1.5 million homes that we want to build, for Heathrow expansion and for our railways. We will need it across a whole range of sectors, and we know that demand is increasing, not reducing.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to say that we produce only about 30% of the steel we use in this country, and we must be much more ambitious about increasing that figure. He is also right to raise questions about carbon leakage and safeguards. The CBAM is being introduced in 2027. We are working through what happens in the interim period, how it works and how it interacts with the European CBAM—some changes are being made to what will be implemented. This work is obviously being led by the Treasury, but we are working really closely with the Treasury to ensure that the CBAM works in a way that protects the steel industry.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  It is getting harder and harder to understand quite what the Opposition’s policy is on steel. It is all over the place. On the one hand, they ask us questions about costs. They say they had negotiated a modernisation plan with British Steel, but they will not tell us how much money they were willing to throw at that plan. Their proposal, apparently, was to build on two sites. If Jingye was asking us for £1.2 billion to build on one site, how much taxpayers’ money were the Government putting on the table to fund two? We need answers to those questions. On nationalisation, last week the shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, who was, as we know, Financial Secretary to the Treasury when Liz Truss crashed the economy, said that he backed full nationalisation of British Steel. On the other hand, this morning the Leader of the Opposition said on Radio 4 that nationalisation should be the “last resort.” It seems a bit muddled. Finally, the hon. Member asked questions about the cost of energy pricing, forgetting of course that industrial energy prices doubled under the Tories. UK Steel, the trade body for the steel industry, is clear and has said that it is “the UK’s reliance on natural gas power generation” that leaves us with higher prices than our international allies. It is not too much clean energy, but too little. The hon. Member asked a reasonable question about the costs. I hope he will understand that matters at the moment are sensitive and commercially confidential, and I hope he will be assured that we will publish accounts in due course. We are securing materials and reviewing things such as health and safety, and other critical roles. Regular meetings are happening between the Departments and British Steel, as he would expect, and of course we will publish those details in due course. He asked about the coalmine. British Steel has told us directly that it could not use that coal because of the sulphur content. We also need coke ovens to turn coal into coke, and the coke ovens at British Steel were closed on his watch several years ago. The reality is that the Tories failed the British Steel sector, and this Labour Government are securing it.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is quite right to raise ceramics and their importance in blast furnaces. We have all become steel experts through the many podcasts that everybody has been listening to over recent weeks. One of the issues with shutting down blast furnaces immediately without proper provision is not just that the metal hardens, but that the ceramics crack and fracture. That was the risk with Jingye refusing to bring in those raw materials. My hon. Friend knows that the ceramics industry is very important to the Secretary of State and to myself, and the wider foundational industries are very important too. He is right to raise issues that we have talked about many times in terms of energy prices. The Government are working at pace to try to alleviate that problem and many others that he has raised, whether cheap imports or other issues.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the steps the Government have taken since the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025 came into force. The Government took the decision to recall Parliament on 12 April so that we could take swift, significant action on British Steel. As hon. Members will be aware, that was the first time Parliament had sat on a Saturday in over 40 years. Our attendance in this place was testament to the urgency and importance of the issue at hand, which was the need to prevent the immediate closure of the blast furnaces at Scunthorpe. The action we took on 12 April and the measures we have taken since matter greatly for this country, and are of enormous importance to thousands of steelworkers and their families. I am very pleased to inform the House that this afternoon, British Steel has cancelled the redundancy consultations started by Jingye. I know that many British Steel employees will breathe a sigh of relief at that news. It is regrettable that when this Government took office, we inherited a steel sector in crisis, and an iconic British company facing an existential threat. Since day one, we have worked tirelessly with British Steel and the trade unions to find a resolution, because blast furnace closures at Scunthorpe is an outcome that this Government were simply not willing to allow. I want to stress that this kind of state intervention is not something that we intend to replicate in other situations, or for other industries. We recognised that unprecedented action was warranted in a truly unprecedented situation. As hon. Members will know, the legislation we introduced, which was passed that weekend, gave us the power to direct British Steel’s board and workforce, ensure they got paid, and order the raw materials to keep the blast furnaces running. It also permits the Government to do those things themselves, if the circumstances demand it. We have wasted no time in enacting those powers and taking the urgent action required to keep the blast furnaces lit at Scunthorpe. We have secured the raw materials needed to keep the blast furnaces operating, and we continue to work at pace to secure a steady pipeline of materials. Officials were on site to help British Steel within hours of the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025 becoming law, and we are already seeing the real-world impact of our decisive intervention. I am delighted to say that British Steel has also confirmed today that it can keep operating both of the UK’s last remaining blast furnaces. By contrast, Jingye’s plan was to shut one of them down earlier this month. It will come as no surprise to hon. Members to hear that the company’s workforce, their families, suppliers and communities have expressed deep gratitude for the action we have taken, which has preserved steelmaking at Scunthorpe and safeguarded thousands of skilled steel jobs. Now that the immediate emergency has passed, it is right that hon. Members also ask questions about what is next. We have been clear that in order to secure the long-term future of British Steel, which has not been properly invested in for years, we will need a modernisation programme, ideally with a private sector partner. Furthermore, we will need to look beyond any individual company, and ensure a secure and thriving future for the whole steel sector. That is why we are continuing our work to publish the steel strategy this spring. All options are on the table as we begin to address the company’s long-term sustainable future. My officials met Jingye on 16 April. It was a respectful conversation, and that dialogue will continue as we find a way forward in the national interest that safeguards steelmaking and protects jobs. With that in mind, I also want to say thank you—thank you to those who sent us messages to say we did the right thing to save British Steel, thank you to everyone who offered practical support and, most importantly, thank you to the workers and managers at British Steel who have heard our call to produce the steel that we need to deliver our plan for change, to keep the Scunthorpe site and everyone working at it safe, and to do so in a way that reduces the scale of financial losses. They have shown remarkable resilience and dedication at a supremely difficult time, and have served the plant, their community and the nation. They have promised us that there are better days ahead for British Steel, and we agree. We are giving them the chance they need to write the next chapter of British Steel’s history. We have assured this House time and again that steel has a bright future under this Government, and I restate that today. Steel is fundamental to Britain’s industrial strength and to our identity as a global power, and we will never hesitate to protect it. We have committed to update both Houses as policy develops and a longer-term strategy is formulated. I reaffirm that written updates will be forthcoming regularly. So let there be no doubt: this week is not the end. It is not the end of the work, and it is not the end of the negotiations, but thanks to the actions we have taken, it is also not the end of British Steel. I commend this statement to the House.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  It would be helpful to understand the Opposition’s official position when it comes to China. China is the world’s second largest economy and our fourth largest trading partner. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country rely on our relationship and our trade with China. We on the Government Benches believe in free and open trade, and we will continue on that basis. The hon. Lady suggests that that is not the Conservative party’s official opinion; it would be useful to understand that. Some 70,000 jobs have been lost in North sea oil and gas since the Conservatives were in power, because it is a declining basin and it is getting harder to drill for oil and gas—we know that. The transition is happening; the issue is how we support that. This Government are putting in place a huge amount of support to try to ensure that those very skilled workers can transition into the green energy sector. I repeat this statistic: £43.7 billion of private sector investment in clean energy has been promised since this Government came to power. Is it really the Conservatives’ opinion that we should throw away all that investment and not protect all those jobs for the future?

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I need to be clear on this point, because I know that there has been lots of speculation. We are not aware of any deliberate acts of sabotage. There was an issue with people coming on site who did not gain access. No Jingye officials are on site at the moment. We are talking to Jingye in a respectful way about what happens next. That said, it was the case that we had been negotiating in good faith, and we felt that that good faith had ended in the way in which Jingye was not securing the raw materials that we were really clear it needed to secure, so there was a breakdown there. The position on Jingye is a position about it as a company; it is not a position about our wider view of China. Because we have hundreds of thousands of jobs that are dependent on trade with China and because it is our fourth-largest trading partner, our position remains that we need to be mindful of that, but we also need to be mindful of security, and we always will be. There will always be a very specific and deliberate account of the security implications of any investors in the UK.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his work and for the support that he has provided to me, officials and others because of his expertise in this space. He is right to thank staff; they have worked unbelievably hard, and I am very grateful for what they have done. He is also right to talk about how we ensure that the product market develops in the way that we want it to. We are looking at how we increase demand in the UK, as well as at procurement and other issues, so that we are not just trying to save our existing provision, but to expand our provision so that the steel industry can start to grow, instead of halving as it has done over the past 10 years under the Tories.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words of appreciation. The construction sector is incredibly important when it comes to steel. We are looking at every measure we can take to ensure that people can buy British steel in a way that is competitive and useful for them. We are looking at procurement and at other measures to make the sector more competitive, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that British Steel provides huge amounts of steel for the construction sector, and we want that to continue.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is completely correct. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition confirmed on the “Today” programme this morning that the Conservative party policy is for an electric arc furnace at Scunthorpe or Scunthorpe and Teesside—it is unclear—which would have cost nearly twice as much as the existing proposals, without any mention of primary steelmaking. I understand that the official Opposition’s position is that they are not in favour of retaining primary steelmaking capacity in the UK.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I thank the Lib Dem spokesperson for his support for our interventions and for his helpful questions. We will publish an impact assessment in due course, including classification considerations. He is right to point out that we did not answer his questions last time, and neither am I answering them this time, but I will ensure that I do. We have said that we will come back every four weeks with a statement, but I will write to him separately to ensure that he has the reassurance that he needs. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a date for the steel strategy, but I assure him that we are working as fast as we can. The issue is difficult because we are talking about spending £2.5 billion of public money. We have to ensure that we do that in the correct way. The roundtables that we have held, the advice from the Steel Council, and the work that we are having done by the Materials Processing Institute and Hatch to consider the economic issues that we need to grapple with, are really important—we must get that right. Of course, when we have a steel strategy, the House must have the opportunity to come and talk about it and be reassured that it is the right thing for the steel industry.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his continued support for his community. Yes, I am very happy to meet the leader of North Lincolnshire council, as I have done previously; he is an incredibly important part of the jigsaw of what happens in the area. I am always happy to meet MPs—I meet my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin) and the hon. Gentleman regularly—and will continue to do so to ensure that we work in the interests of the whole area.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  We deeply regret the choices that INEOS has made. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Grangemouth does not provide the only refining capacity in the UK, but he is right to say it is the only provision in Scotland, which is why we intervened with a package of support and a £200 million commitment from the national wealth fund for what happens to the site. The hon. Gentleman is right to stand up for people in Grangemouth over the issues that they are facing, and we are doing all we can. As I said in my statement, the position in Scunthorpe was unique and particular, but that does not mean that we do not care just as much about the people in Grangemouth and that we will not ensure that we do everything that we can to pursue to the future development of that site in a way that supports jobs.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I just do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s position on this issue. He is right to say that we have seen the offshoring of manufacturing over a period of years. We have not entirely lost the aluminium sector—there is one smelter left, but that is all. Indeed, I meet representatives of the aluminium sector regularly, because it has had 25% tariffs put on it, just as the steel industry has. The trade body, UK Steel, was really clear that the UK’s reliance on natural gas power generation leaves us with higher prices. The steel sector does not pay the green levies because of reductions that it is given. It is not net zero causing this problem; the challenge is how we get the clean energy that we need to stop our reliance on the overseas oil and gas market. He is right to say that we have seen offshoring, and we are working to stop that.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman says that is not true, but he needs to provide evidence of that, because that is what British Steel has told us, and it does not have coking ovens because they were closed under the previous Government.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I hope the hon. Gentleman understands that the interventions that we made in this case were different for a number of reasons. When we were in Opposition, we worked with Tata to try to get it to change its plans, but we were unsuccessful. When we came into Government, we improved the deal that the previous Government had negotiated and we improved the redundancy offer. We got Tata to commit to invest in assets and free up land for other things, and we got it to provide a package of measures to improve that situation. The hon. Gentleman is right that that package meant the closure of the blast furnaces and the building of an electric arc furnace, with the closure happening before the electric arc furnace arrived, and because of the way that electric arc furnaces work, they are more efficient and need fewer people. We have been working really hard through the transformation board, led by the Secretary of State for Wales and the Welsh Government, to ensure that everybody has a significant package of support to try to ensure they transition to other jobs. That work is ongoing and progressing well, and we will continue to focus on it. The two situations were fundamentally different. In Scunthorpe, British Steel was in the middle of a consultation on potential redundancies, and it failed to secure the materials to keep the blast furnaces going, which would have completely broken what British Steel should have been doing during that consultation. We could not allow that to happen, those blast furnaces to close and thousands of people to be suddenly made redundant, which is why we intervened in the way we did.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  We know that Reform is a recent convert to steel—some of us have been supporting the industry for a long time—but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point about what comes next. Our position remains that the best way forward is to try to find a commercial business to invest alongside Government, but we will do whatever it takes to secure the future of steelmaking and protect those jobs, for national security and for the supply chains. No options are off the table. I hope he will understand that although nationalisation is the most likely option, we would prefer a commercially run business. We are investigating all options. Nothing is off the table. We continue having many conversations, and as soon as we have an answer, we will come to this House.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is of course right: the steel strategy is all the more important now than when we devised it in opposition and committed £2.5 billion for the steel strategy fund in our manifesto. We are looking at how we use that financial support, and, as he knows, at how we might do primary production. We are investigating future market opportunities and how we can increase demand here in the UK. He speaks of procurement, which of course is incredibly important. I have been talking to the procurement Minister and working on that, along with the Steel Council. We need to consider the availability of suitable sites for future investments. Scrap is important, as my right hon. Friend says—how can we improve UK capability? Trade and overcapacity is a huge issue, and one that we share with our American colleagues, which is why we do not believe that the tariffs are necessary—we have the same problems and should try to solve them together. Carbon leakage, green steel, research and development, jobs and skills—we will develop a whole package of measures as quickly as we can. We will ensure that the plan, which we will publish in the spring, is one for the whole country and secures steel in the UK.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The supply chain of these big steel production companies, whether Tata, British Steel or others, is really important. I do not have an answer for him now, but I will look into the issue he raises about Rotary Engineering and ensure the right thing is being done.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee for his important question. He makes the point that we need steel for green energy—wind turbines, carbon capture and so on—and our energy security. There is an important wider point, which is that since the election, £43.7 billion has been committed by the private sector to invest in clean energy in this country. Those on the Opposition Benches who are questioning net zero are putting at risk thousands of jobs that we will see delivered through clean energy. We have to be very careful what we wish for, because that investment is incredibly important for our country. The green energy sector is growing 10% faster than the rest of the economy. These are important things and important jobs. My hon. Friend makes a really sensible point about grid connection. We have not just seen this at Scunthorpe; we have seen it with many different companies, where grid connections being 15 or even 20 years away makes investment completely unviable. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero announced last week how we are reforming the grid queue, getting rid of zombie projects and ensuring that we prioritise what is important. We will ensure we are doing everything we can to improve that connection at Scunthorpe.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for promoting me to Secretary of State—I am actually just a junior Minister. She is right to raise the issue of Port Talbot. The transition board has papers that we can send her, which set out exactly how many people have gone through training processes. The number of people who have taken compulsory redundancy is very small; I might be wrong—I am speculating slightly—but I think it is in the region of 190. Those people have had a package of support, and a lot of detail is available through the transition board about how that support will be provided. Of course, about 5,000 jobs will be secure in Port Talbot, but the hon. Lady is right to raise the issue; it is a significant and important one that I would not want to downplay. The situation in Port Talbot was different, and we had to have a different response, but I am very happy to provide the information that she wants in more detail.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I have met representatives from Union Electric Steel—everyone still calls it Davy Roll. The supply chain is incredibly important, and we are looking at it in our plan for steel. However, the investments made across Government more broadly over the years show that that supply chain, in whichever area of manufacturing it is found, has not been protected. The Ministry of Defence is keen to secure the supply chain in the UK for the investment that we are putting into defence, whether in aerospace, advanced manufacturing or space. We need to build supply chain capacity here in the UK because the world has changed and we have different priorities now, and my hon. Friend is right to raise that.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not comment from the Dispatch Box on reports that have been made during the debate. We are actively engaged, minute by minute, on activities in British Steel. If anything, those reports underwrite the need for the powers in the Bill to be introduced on this day. I hope all hon. Members will support the introduction of the legislation and vote for it today. The hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham suggested that we could have moved faster. I reassure the House that we do not recall the House lightly. We do it because we have a choice today: do we want to deny any possibility of the future of the steelworks at Scunthorpe and do we want to see the closure of the blast furnaces, or do we want to secure a future for those workers and for primary steelmaking in this country?

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me, but there is no time for me to give way. I reassure the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham that in no way have we moved slowly—we have been moving at pace throughout our time in government. There were suggestions that we should move to nationalise British Steel today and that this Bill is already nationalisation. It is not nationalisation and we are not moving to nationalise British Steel today. We are taking very significant powers that we do not underestimate. That buys us time to have the leverage and the time we need to look at what must be done next, but we will act in the national interest. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, nothing is off the table. There was a suggestion that we should use the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. That is difficult to do because it is very hard to meet the criteria; there has to be a risk of death, so we did not meet that criteria. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) that economic security and national security are two sides of the same coin. The emergency legislation we have brought forward today is essential to protect British Steel, its workforce and the national interest. This Government will never hesitate to act in the national interest to keep Britain secure at home and strong abroad, and this legislation is proof of that. Today we take back control, and I urge all Members of this House to vote for this Bill.