No, because I want to make some progress and to address all the points that have been made.
I do get agitated because I know the five asks regarding the steel industry. We have delivered on four and as for the fifth, which is business rates, the review continues. I hope that the Chancellor will agree with my view, for what it is worth, that rates should not rise after investments in plant and machinery which, as I have said many times, is bonkers. I hope that the representations that the Secretary of State, BIS and I make on behalf of all businesses affected by that peculiarity will advance that argument and that the Chancellor will agree with us.
Let us be honest, however, and recognise the problem: the price of steel has been tumbling. The price of slab has almost halved in 12 months. Production across the world—this is not just China—has increased, but consumption has fallen and is yet to return to pre-2008 crisis levels, so what is the Government’s priority? I will not put a figure on it, but the priority is to secure the production of steel at Scunthorpe and Port Talbot. I want to pay tribute to everybody who works in the steel sector, especially to all those workers who have so far found themselves being made redundant. We will not forget the more than 2,000 workers at SSI in Redcar and the many more in the supply chain. I and all my Conservative colleagues do not need to be patronised by being told about the huge impact that redundancies have on communities and right across the workforce, because we understand that. I pay tribute to all those who work at Scunthorpe and Port Talbot, and to those who have lost their jobs, while also remembering what is happening at Forgemasters.
Forgemasters makes steel particularly well. It effectively has a contract with the Ministry of Defence, but it is not with the MOD, in that it supplies the steel for Trident. If Opposition Members want to secure Forgemasters’ future, they need to ensure that they support Trident—that is an absolute fact.