My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of my central points is that the British steel industry is competitive. I freely admit that the British steel industry of the past often was not competitive, often had poor
industrial relations and weak management, and sometimes had, in the distant past, very low productivity. However, over the years, it has become one of the most efficient industries anywhere, with some of the best working relationships between workers and employers, because of their understanding of the common interests that bind them together, and because of the workforce’s desire to ensure that the British steel industry has a future, with them often prepared to make real sacrifices to enable that to happen. That is why we have such a competitive steel industry. The only sense in which it is not competitive is because of the issue raised by many Members today: Chinese dumping of steel at well below what it costs China to produce.
China’s steel makers, 70% of which are state owned, are not profitable, and, according to our UK Steel briefing, are believed to lose close to $34 per tonne on all crude steel produced in China. In 2015, they produced 441 million tonnes more steel than China itself consumed. China’s 101 biggest steel firms lost $11 billion in the first 10 months of 2015. In 2003, China exported 7.2 million tonnes of steel, which was 5% of the steel trade between the main global regions; by 2015, total export levels from China had exceeded 107 million tonnes.
It is impossible for the highly competitive and efficient British steel industry to compete with a state entity of that size—the country contains one in five of the world’s population—that is determined to use that capacity to kill off its competitors and to destroy the British steel industry. That was what was going on while Ministers were talking to Chinese officials when they were over in the autumn. At the same time as its officials are smiling and talking about future trade deals, China is pursuing a policy of deliberately killing off the British steel industry.