Thank you, Mr Walker. It is a privilege to speak in this debate—yet another one on steel in this House. I apologise that I will have to leave part way through the debate for a meeting elsewhere about steel in Scunthorpe. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) is coming as well, so we give our apologies.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on securing the debate and on his good opening speech. As he said, the campaign for the steel industry has been going on for a long while—the challenges facing the industry are not new at all. We have known about since I was elected in 2010. Even since the steel summit in October—to give credit to the Minister, she was largely responsible for taking the energy from both Government and Opposition Members and moving the summit forward—the situation has become much worse. At the end of the summit we
learned about the loss of jobs at Long Products, including in Scunthorpe. Since then we have had job losses in Rotherham and at Caparo Merchant Bar, and this week in south Wales and at Forgemasters in Sheffield. Things are getting significantly worse, not better, so the Government need to step up even more to the plate than they have done so far.