UK Parliament / Open data

UK Steel Industry

Proceeding contribution from Stephen Doughty (Labour) in the House of Commons on Thursday, 21 January 2016. It occurred during Backbench debate on UK Steel Industry.

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. Such promises have been the hallmark of much of the relationship with Europe of this Government and the previous one. There has been a lack of engagement. We can argue about the reasons why, but things have not been followed through until far too late in the day. I know that the

Minister will talk about the actions she took, which were very welcome—I praised her for them publicly—but that was the first action after many similar requests in terms of our relationship with Europe.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon talked about market economy status, and my biggest concern is China. It is basic economics. The statistics show that Chinese steel exports have increased every year—they rose in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. If we look specifically at statistics for the EU, we see an upward trend of Chinese exports since the start of 2011. In 2014, they increased by 53%. They peaked in quarter 4 of 2014 at 27.1 million tonnes, but in quarter 3 of 2015, a new record was set of 29.4 million tonnes, which was an increase of 17% in one quarter.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
604 cc675-6WH 
Session
2015-16
Chamber / Committee
Westminster Hall
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