The Minister will shake her head and say, “No, of course we’re all lined up on this, ” but the Government need to lay out the industrial
strategy for steel, and lay it out with urgency, setting the timescale in which a range of measures will be delivered. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole was absolutely right that no one measure will do this. There should be a package of measures on the table right now, and that includes at a European Union level. I know, as a former Minister who used to go to Europe, how difficult it is to negotiate out there.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon and others outlined the issue of market economy status for China. In an open letter to the Minister, the general secretary of the steelworkers’ union Community, Roy Rickhuss, wrote:
“senior industry figures…have told me that if China does achieve Market Economy Status it will be a catastrophe for our industry and most likely the final nail in the coffin for UK steelmaking.”
The Minister does not want to see that, and I do not want to see that. In that case, we need to get this absolutely right. I need to hear—all of our constituents need to hear—from the Minister the approach of the UK Government to that matter.
The reality of granting China MES status was outlined in a study by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute that was published last September. It stated:
“an EU decision to unilaterally grant MES to China would put between 1.7 million and 3.5 million EU jobs at risk”
by curbing the ability to impose any interventions on those dumped goods. That is the scale of risk, so we have the situation that we are already dealing with, and then we have that.
I know that the Government have been accused of being a cheerleader for China. Let me put it in a different way. Unless we hear something different from the Minister today, it will seem to many people that the Government either are proactively encouraging the opening up of markets at all costs, without any regard for not only steel but other industries, or are simply failing to realise—for whatever reason, whether ideological or otherwise—the importance of the steel industry to this country and our communities.
Let me close on this point. The steel industry has to be more competitive, as we know. When I was a little toddler in shorts, my grandfather would take me to the Baldwins steelworks in Gowerton. It was the most outdated steelworks—crikey! I remember the smell and the smoke, and the danger and the excitement of it. Those works are long gone, but Tata Steel Port Talbot and the other plants throughout the UK should have a future. They need an actively engaged Government who say, “Not only do we believe in the industry, and not only do we have the words, but here are the five or six measures that the industry, unions and the steel group of MPs are calling for.” Just do it, and we will throw our weight behind you.
2.19 pm