UK Steel Industry

That is an absolute disgrace. We should all, regardless of where we sit and to which party we belong, be identifying steel as a major and important foundation industry for the British manufacturing base and having a co-ordinated approach to ensure that we can safeguard and retain those assets and, crucially, those skills as much as possible. If we are moving towards the high-value-steel end, where we are producing steel, metals, and materials that are stronger, more flexible and lighter, we need the skills to be able to do that. The 2,000 people in Redcar are not coming back to the steel industry. The 750 people in Port Talbot will in all likelihood not come back to the steel industry. And the hundreds of jobs in the steel industry that have been lost in my constituency will not come back. That is to the detriment of the British manufacturing base and the future competitiveness of the UK steel industry.