I call the shadow Minister.

I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.

I want to thank the Government for saving British Steel. Our Committee has been clear that it is essential for us to retain the ability to make primary steel in this country, and the steps that were taken a couple of Saturdays ago have helped derisk exactly that.

The Government deserve credit for that. However, the Committee has written to the Government to say that a steel strategy needs to come forward as quickly as possible.

It must be a clear, long-term vision for the industry, and there must be safeguards against the potential of a floodtide of steel from China.

We need to use public procurement much more aggressively to support our local industry, energy costs need to come down, and we need a plan to keep scrap onshore. Will the Minister tell us when she plans to bring forward that steel strategy?

Ultimately, what is good for the steel industry is good for Scunthorpe.

My right hon. Friend is of course right: the steel strategy is all the more important now than when we devised it in opposition and committed £2.5 billion for the steel strategy fund in our manifesto.

We are looking at how we use that financial support, and, as he knows, at how we might do primary production. We are investigating future market opportunities and how we can increase demand here in the UK. He speaks of procurement, which of course is incredibly important.

I have been talking to the procurement Minister and working on that, along with the Steel Council. We need to consider the availability of suitable sites for future investments. Scrap is important, as my right hon. Friend says—how can we improve UK capability?

Trade and overcapacity is a huge issue, and one that we share with our American colleagues, which is why we do not believe that the tariffs are necessary—we have the same problems and should try to solve them together.

Carbon leakage, green steel, research and development, jobs and skills—we will develop a whole package of measures as quickly as we can. We will ensure that the plan, which we will publish in the spring, is one for the whole country and secures steel in the UK.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement, and I associate myself with her gratitude towards Mr Speaker, hon. Members, parliamentary staff and, most importantly, the workers and managers of British Steel.

It is incredibly welcome news that both blast furnaces in Scunthorpe will continue to operate, allowing those who are employed at the site, the 35,000-plus families in this country who would have been affected by its closure, and Britain’s national security, to breathe a momentary sigh of relief.

Will the Minister join me in thanking the British Steel workforce for ensuring that the furnaces have not been allowed to go cold? It is good to see the Government taking action after the Conservatives spent far too long dithering over what to do.

The Minister has committed to delivering a steel strategy by the end of the spring, so the Government have five weeks left to produce it. Can she confirm that it will be published before 31 May, and that Parliament will have the opportunity to debate it?

When we were here a few Saturdays ago, I asked the Secretary of State to confirm that the pension fund of employees and former employees is not in deficit, that all company contributions are up to date, and that assets of the scheme have not been transferred to the holding company or any offshore businesses.

I am waiting for confirmation on that. Finally, can the Minister guarantee that no redundancies will be made as a result of the action taken in the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025?

I thank the Lib Dem spokesperson for his support for our interventions and for his helpful questions. We will publish an impact assessment in due course, including classification considerations.

He is right to point out that we did not answer his questions last time, and neither am I answering them this time, but I will ensure that I do.

We have said that we will come back every four weeks with a statement, but I will write to him separately to ensure that he has the reassurance that he needs. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a date for the steel strategy, but I assure him that we are working as fast as we can.

The issue is difficult because we are talking about spending £2.5 billion of public money. We have to ensure that we do that in the correct way.

The roundtables that we have held, the advice from the Steel Council, and the work that we are having done by the Materials Processing Institute and Hatch to consider the economic issues that we need to grapple with, are really important—we must get that right.

Of course, when we have a steel strategy, the House must have the opportunity to come and talk about it and be reassured that it is the right thing for the steel industry.

Last week, I met trade union representatives at Llanwern steelworks. I clearly understand and welcome the action taken at Scunthorpe, which stands in complete contrast with the Conservative party, which had no steel strategy in 14 years of government.

Will the Minister be mindful of the promises made by Tata to invest in assets at Llanwern? We need that to be delivered. Plants like Llanwern should get their fair share of the green steel fund and procurement. What progress will we soon see on that?

My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of Tata investing in those assets and the future of the Port Talbot site, which is incredibly important. Of course, we meet regularly to talk about that.

We have the transition board, which the Secretary of State for Wales convenes, along with the Welsh Government. We are working at pace to understand what those future investments could be. She is right to demand that the steel plan is for everywhere rather than just for one part or other of the UK.

We want to and will ensure that the nations and regions all benefit from the funding and mechanisms that we put in place to improve procurement, scrap and all those things. Of course, it is not just Tata in Wales; Celsa too is incredibly important and a very impressive company.

She can be reassured on that front. I am always happy to have more conversations with colleagues from Wales about how that can work going forward.

It is clearly extremely welcome that the redundancy notices have been withdrawn—the steel community will breathe a sigh of relief. The Minister quite rightly speaks about what happens next.

As well as a national streel strategy, the north Lincolnshire area needs a strategy of its own to maintain the local economy.

Will she commit to an early meeting with MPs from the affected area, as well as with Councillor Rob Waltham, who leads North Lincolnshire council and has produced a document highlighting the way forward? That would be extremely helpful.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his continued support for his community. Yes, I am very happy to meet the leader of North Lincolnshire council, as I have done previously; he is an incredibly important part of the jigsaw of what happens in the area. I am always happy to meet MPs—I meet my hon.

Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin) and the hon. Gentleman regularly—and will continue to do so to ensure that we work in the interests of the whole area.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin) on his tireless advocacy for the steelworkers and his Scunthorpe constituents—it should be recognised.

How has the Government’s decision to take control of British Steel been received by the workforce, customers and suppliers?

I agree with my hon. Friend’s comments about the tireless work of our hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe on securing the future of British Steel. The Secretary of State went to the British Steel site in Scunthorpe just after the legislation was passed.

I think it is fair to say that there was great relief after our intervention, but workers will also quite rightly be asking us, “What happens next and how will you secure the future of the site?” We are now completely focused on that.

Let me ask a question on behalf of my constituents who have sweated blood to keep the blast furnaces going. Unfortunately, as we know, electric arc technology cannot make virgin steel—only blast furnaces can do that.

Are the Government 100% committed to maintaining our permanent ability to make virgin steel?

As the Secretary of State made clear during the debate of Saturday before last, the capacity for primary steelmaking production is important, and the steel strategy will look at exactly how we deliver that.

There are new ways of delivering primary steel—using hydrogen, for example—that other European countries are now using and developing. We will ensure that, whatever the future brings, we have the right level of production in this country.

The Government have my full-hearted support for the action they have taken with regard to Scunthorpe, which is important for not merely Scunthorpe itself and the workers there but the supply chain as well. In that regard, I want to raise an issue of concern that I hope my hon.

Friend the Minister will look into. I have had a letter from Ian Walker, who is the chairman of Rotary Engineering, a long-established, highly regarded specialist engineering firm in my constituency.

It provided services to British Steel last November, and it is still waiting for payment for those services, despite regular correspondence that has been ignored. If Rotary Engineering is having this difficulty with British Steel, many other small and medium-sized enterprises could as well.

Will my hon. Friend look into this as a matter of urgency, find out what British Steel has been doing and try to ensure that these important companies—important for not merely British Steel but our whole engineering industry—are paid and able to survive?

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The supply chain of these big steel production companies, whether Tata, British Steel or others, is really important.

I do not have an answer for him now, but I will look into the issue he raises about Rotary Engineering and ensure the right thing is being done.

I thank the Minister for her statement and the good news about the saving of British Steel.

She has not referred to the timetable for moving towards nationalisation, which we fully support and encourage the Government to push on with, so that they can accelerate towards the modernisation programme that she referred to.

The new-found love of this House for blast furnaces should be encouraged, and we should be refurbishing and investing in them. That is the right thing to do to create a thriving steel industry to support British industry and our defence industry.

We know that Reform is a recent convert to steel—some of us have been supporting the industry for a long time—but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point about what comes next.

Our position remains that the best way forward is to try to find a commercial business to invest alongside Government, but we will do whatever it takes to secure the future of steelmaking and protect those jobs, for national security and for the supply chains. No options are off the table.

I hope he will understand that although nationalisation is the most likely option, we would prefer a commercially run business. We are investigating all options. Nothing is off the table. We continue having many conversations, and as soon as we have an answer, we will come to this House.

We need steel for wind turbines, for the equipment for carbon capture and for the expansion of grid infrastructure. In short, it is an essential part of how we expand our energy security in this country.

The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee that the grid connection date for Scunthorpe was 2034. Can my hon.

Friend confirm that, as a crucial element of the modernisation agenda and securing the long-term future of Scunthorpe and steelmaking, which is so important to energy and every other part of our economy, she and her colleagues are looking at how that grid connection can be brought forward?

I thank the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee for his important question. He makes the point that we need steel for green energy—wind turbines, carbon capture and so on—and our energy security. There is an important wider point, which is that since the election, £43.

7 billion has been committed by the private sector to invest in clean energy in this country. Those on the Opposition Benches who are questioning net zero are putting at risk thousands of jobs that we will see delivered through clean energy.

We have to be very careful what we wish for, because that investment is incredibly important for our country. The green energy sector is growing 10% faster than the rest of the economy. These are important things and important jobs. My hon.

Friend makes a really sensible point about grid connection. We have not just seen this at Scunthorpe; we have seen it with many different companies, where grid connections being 15 or even 20 years away makes investment completely unviable. My right hon.

Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero announced last week how we are reforming the grid queue, getting rid of zombie projects and ensuring that we prioritise what is important. We will ensure we are doing everything we can to improve that connection at Scunthorpe.

I take at face value what the Minister has said today about British Steel having a bright future. However, she did not mention any figures, other than a global figure of £2.5 billion floating around somewhere.

Will she tell the House when she expects to publish the accounting officer assessment that is required when public money is committed? We can then test in the Public Accounts Committee whether those rules for spending public money are being adhered to, particularly in terms of feasibility.

The hon. Gentleman makes a really good point: we are spending public money, and we need to be incredibly careful in the way we do that.

Of course, what we spend will be accounted for in the Department for Business and Trade annual accounts, as the insolvency costs were when we were in this position in 2019. We will update the House and bring forward whatever we can on those figures. He is right to raise that.

I want to reassure him that the £2.5 billion is not floating around; it is a commitment in the Labour manifesto, and it is budgeted for.

How we might spend that money is what we are trying to devise through the plan for steel, which will rightly have a lot of scrutiny from this House, the Public Accounts Committee and others.

I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend on her sterling work and very much welcome her statement. No doubt she will remember that on 11 April, the Leader of the Opposition said that in government she had negotiated a steel modernisation plan.

The next day, when the Government brought in emergency legislation to save Scunthorpe, she said she was still negotiating a deal when her boss called the snap general election.

There was never any agreement for an electric arc furnace on Teesside, as she claimed, as much as me and my colleagues support the concept.

Will the Minister confirm that it was the Conservative party that presided over the end of virgin steelmaking in Redcar and Port Talbot, and that it would have done the same at Scunthorpe were it not for the Labour Government?

Will she also confirm that if the private sector will not sufficiently invest, the Government will maintain British Steel through public ownership and use their public procurement strategy to make the company sufficiently profitable?

My hon. Friend is completely correct.

Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition confirmed on the “Today” programme this morning that the Conservative party policy is for an electric arc furnace at Scunthorpe or Scunthorpe and Teesside—it is unclear—which would have cost nearly twice as much as the existing proposals, without any mention of primary steelmaking.

I understand that the official Opposition’s position is that they are not in favour of retaining primary steelmaking capacity in the UK.

In her statement, the Minister celebrated the fact that this is not the end of British Steel, and we all welcome that, but Labour’s policies very well could be the end of domestic oil and gas, whether it is the extended windfall tax, removing investment allowances or no new oil and gas licences.

We are walking towards the end of our domestic oil and gas sector, which has proven so beneficial to us across Scotland and the UK, all the while offshoring our emissions and relying on, at best, unreliable and, at worst, hostile states such as China to supply our renewable energy infrastructure.

Taking the example of British Steel, is it not time to reverse Labour’s headlong rush towards ending oil and gas in the North sea and to rely on our domestic supply for as long as we can, to help our energy security into the future?

I thank the Minister for her statement and for her swift action. The people of Scunthorpe will be grateful, but as my hon.

Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) noted, that stands in contrast to the way in which the people of Redcar and other areas were so cruelly abandoned by the last Government. The steel industry is not the production of steel alone; it also includes the supply chain.

The Davy Roll Company, now Union Electric Steel, in my constituency, at the heart of Gateshead, performs a vital role as the last cast steel roll maker in the UK.

The Minister has met representatives from the company, so will she update me on the work that she is doing to protect not only the steel industry where steel is made, but the wider supply chain?

I have met representatives from Union Electric Steel—everyone still calls it Davy Roll. The supply chain is incredibly important, and we are looking at it in our plan for steel.

However, the investments made across Government more broadly over the years show that that supply chain, in whichever area of manufacturing it is found, has not been protected.

The Ministry of Defence is keen to secure the supply chain in the UK for the investment that we are putting into defence, whether in aerospace, advanced manufacturing or space.

We need to build supply chain capacity here in the UK because the world has changed and we have different priorities now, and my hon. Friend is right to raise that.

There is consensus across this House that producing steel in the UK is completely necessary—that is undeniable. However, to produce steel we need coking coal.

The US has given us a supply line for the next couple of weeks to keep our blast furnaces alive, and I know that the Minister is speaking to Australia and Sweden as well, but we need the ability to produce coking coal, so will the Minister please breathe fire into producing coking coal here in the UK?

I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the situation at Whitehaven.

That is not true.

The hon. Gentleman says that is not true, but he needs to provide evidence of that, because that is what British Steel has told us, and it does not have coking ovens because they were closed under the previous Government.

My hon. Friend makes important points and that is exactly what we are looking at in the steel strategy.

On dumping steel, having been requested to examine the issue by British Steel, the Trade Remedies Authority has agreed to look at steel safeguards and ensure that they are fit for purpose in the here and now.

We are also looking at what happens beyond 2026, when the steel safeguards stop, to ensure that sufficient safeguards are in place. All the issues she mentions need to be looked at, including electricity prices and energy prices, which doubled under the last Conservative Government.

As we have said before, 53% of global steel production comes from China. We need to look at that imbalance, at how we can ensure cheap steel does not come into this country and at how carbon leakage is working. We are working hard on all those issues.

If the Government now believe that primary steelmaking capacity is critical for the security of the UK, do they also recognise that the skilled workers needed to produce that steel are equally as important?

If so, why were they willing to let 2,800 of them be made unemployed last September in Port Talbot?

I hope the hon. Gentleman understands that the interventions that we made in this case were different for a number of reasons. When we were in Opposition, we worked with Tata to try to get it to change its plans, but we were unsuccessful.

When we came into Government, we improved the deal that the previous Government had negotiated and we improved the redundancy offer. We got Tata to commit to invest in assets and free up land for other things, and we got it to provide a package of measures to improve that situation. The hon.

Gentleman is right that that package meant the closure of the blast furnaces and the building of an electric arc furnace, with the closure happening before the electric arc furnace arrived, and because of the way that electric arc furnaces work, they are more efficient and need fewer people.

We have been working really hard through the transformation board, led by the Secretary of State for Wales and the Welsh Government, to ensure that everybody has a significant package of support to try to ensure they transition to other jobs.

That work is ongoing and progressing well, and we will continue to focus on it. The two situations were fundamentally different.

In Scunthorpe, British Steel was in the middle of a consultation on potential redundancies, and it failed to secure the materials to keep the blast furnaces going, which would have completely broken what British Steel should have been doing during that consultation.

We could not allow that to happen, those blast furnaces to close and thousands of people to be suddenly made redundant, which is why we intervened in the way we did.

I thank my hon. Friend for his work and for the support that he has provided to me, officials and others because of his expertise in this space. He is right to thank staff; they have worked unbelievably hard, and I am very grateful for what they have done.

He is also right to talk about how we ensure that the product market develops in the way that we want it to.

We are looking at how we increase demand in the UK, as well as at procurement and other issues, so that we are not just trying to save our existing provision, but to expand our provision so that the steel industry can start to grow, instead of halving as it has done over the past 10 years under the Tories.

Despite recent comments by a Scotland Office Minister, may I make it crystal clear that it is not “manufacturing grievance” to suggest that Grangemouth, like Scunthorpe, should be nationalised to protect a critical economic and security asset that has been run down by foreign owners?

What we have seen from the UK Government in the last weeks, including today, is that when push comes to shove, they can take bold action in crisis, as they have done in Scunthorpe.

Therefore, is it not the case that if the UK Government fail to act in a similar fashion at Grangemouth, highly skilled jobs will be lost, Scotland’s only capacity to refine oil will be shut down and critical energy security will be further diminished?

We deeply regret the choices that INEOS has made. As the hon.

Gentleman knows, Grangemouth does not provide the only refining capacity in the UK, but he is right to say it is the only provision in Scotland, which is why we intervened with a package of support and a £200 million commitment from the national wealth fund for what happens to the site. The hon.

Gentleman is right to stand up for people in Grangemouth over the issues that they are facing, and we are doing all we can.

As I said in my statement, the position in Scunthorpe was unique and particular, but that does not mean that we do not care just as much about the people in Grangemouth and that we will not ensure that we do everything that we can to pursue to the future development of that site in a way that supports jobs.

My hon. Friend is right to say that we produce only about 30% of the steel we use in this country, and we must be much more ambitious about increasing that figure. He is also right to raise questions about carbon leakage and safeguards. The CBAM is being introduced in 2027.

We are working through what happens in the interim period, how it works and how it interacts with the European CBAM—some changes are being made to what will be implemented.

This work is obviously being led by the Treasury, but we are working really closely with the Treasury to ensure that the CBAM works in a way that protects the steel industry.

On the day that Parliament was recalled, I gather that the workers themselves had to confront Chinese executives who were intent on coming on to the site. They believe that those executives intended to take unilateral action to shut down the blast furnace irrecoverably. Is that correct?

What does that tell us about the motivation and behaviour of China when it gets its hands on our strategic industries?

I need to be clear on this point, because I know that there has been lots of speculation. We are not aware of any deliberate acts of sabotage. There was an issue with people coming on site who did not gain access. No Jingye officials are on site at the moment.

We are talking to Jingye in a respectful way about what happens next.

That said, it was the case that we had been negotiating in good faith, and we felt that that good faith had ended in the way in which Jingye was not securing the raw materials that we were really clear it needed to secure, so there was a breakdown there.

The position on Jingye is a position about it as a company; it is not a position about our wider view of China.

Because we have hundreds of thousands of jobs that are dependent on trade with China and because it is our fourth-largest trading partner, our position remains that we need to be mindful of that, but we also need to be mindful of security, and we always will be.

There will always be a very specific and deliberate account of the security implications of any investors in the UK.

We cannot make British steel without British ceramics.

High temperature-resistant refractory ceramics are needed to line the blast furnaces to keep them alight, but the Minister is acutely aware that the ceramics sector in this country, much like the glass and chemicals sectors, is being crippled by energy prices, because of both wholesale costs and policy costs, which the last Government chose to put on and which were continued by this Government.

When the Minister talks about backing British industry and manufacturing, can she say when glass, ceramics and other foundational industries will get the support they need to prop up and support the advanced manufacturing that we are all so proud of?

The cost of that will be a tiny proportion of what has been committed to British Steel.

The Government have done the right thing, because steel is strategically important and the jobs are locally important. The Minister has asked what is next.

I suspect that the House will come back to this issue, maybe very shortly, because over the last decade, we have seen energy-intensive industries flee the United Kingdom. Aluminium is gone, we have hardly any oil refineries, and we have one steel plant left.

The reason for that is the mad net zero policy, which the Minister has tried to defend today. Decarbonisation has increased our energy costs, so that they are three times higher than in the US and eight times higher than in China.

We do not have any local supplies of raw materials; we bring them halfway round the world. Carbon taxes add to the cost for businesses. Does the Minister accept that the economic reality is that we pour public money in at one end, and see it going down the net zero drain at the other?

I just do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s position on this issue. He is right to say that we have seen the offshoring of manufacturing over a period of years. We have not entirely lost the aluminium sector—there is one smelter left, but that is all.

Indeed, I meet representatives of the aluminium sector regularly, because it has had 25% tariffs put on it, just as the steel industry has. The trade body, UK Steel, was really clear that the UK’s reliance on natural gas power generation leaves us with higher prices.

The steel sector does not pay the green levies because of reductions that it is given. It is not net zero causing this problem; the challenge is how we get the clean energy that we need to stop our reliance on the overseas oil and gas market.

He is right to say that we have seen offshoring, and we are working to stop that.

Does the Minister, in contrast with the last speaker, agree that the future of this country is in clean power, safely produced from our own natural resources, such as floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea, and ultimately in our infrastructure being built out of green British steel, not steel imported from China?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We were talking earlier today about the importance of floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea, and the huge possibilities that brings the UK for energy security and good jobs.

Further to the answer that the Minister gave to my right hon.

Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), will she at least concede that it would be opportune to conduct an audit of our critical national industries, to ensure that if there are issues around foreign ownership, or ownership by malign state entities, we know where they are and have a plan to deal with them?

The right hon. Gentleman is right.

We need an audit of our critical national industries, and we are doing that through our industrial strategy, so that, particularly in the eight growth-driving sectors that we have identified, we have policies to ensure that companies in the UK can continue to thrive.

We believe in free and open trade, and we are not moving away from that; the Chancellor is making that case this week with our American colleagues. Security is incredibly important. The right hon.

Gentleman will know that we are ensuring that where security is an issue, we take appropriate action, but that does not mean that we will stop trading with the second largest economy in the world.

I put on record how proud I am to be sat on the Benches of the Government who are finally taking action to save the steel industry in this country. In my constituency, tens of thousands of people have steel engineering and manufacturing running through their blood.

We are proud of that history, and we really want to contribute to a green, clean industrial future.

When Ministers have big discussions about investment, and meet great businesses that want a place in which to invest, I ask them to consider Darlington and the Tees valley—a fruitful land full of people who know the value of hard graft.

Darlington and the Tees valley are excellent places in which to invest, so I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. In many parts of our country, steel is in the bones of our communities, but of course, this is not about looking back—it is about looking forward.

In the future, we will need steel for not just clean energy, but for building the 1.5 million homes that we want to build, for Heathrow expansion and for our railways. We will need it across a whole range of sectors, and we know that demand is increasing, not reducing.

The Minister talks about working at pace. If she wants to see what pace looks like, she might consider the Business and Trade Committee’s report on steel, which was turned around in rapid time—much faster than the snail’s pace review of steel, which has yet to emerge.

Will it do so in the spring, or the summer? No one is quite sure. When that review finally emerges, will it address the elephant in the room, which is the ridiculous energy costs in this country?

They have been driven up in part by gas, but also by carbon taxes, and by the renewable subsidies laid on by this Government.

I call Ann Davies.

Diolch yn fawr, Madam Dirprwy Lefarydd. I would like to follow up on a question from the hon. Member for Brycheiniog, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick), because unlike at Scunthorpe, jobs at Port Talbot are not being saved.

The Government say that instead, they will retrain workers through the employment and skills flexible fund. Seven months later, can the Secretary of State say exactly how that money has been spent, and how many of the 2,800 laid-off steelworkers at Port Talbot have been retrained or re-employed?

I call Jim Shannon to ask the final question from the Back Benches.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for all her hard work, and I thank the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and the Labour Government for their commitment to, and for saving, British Steel.

There is no one in this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland who is not aware of that and does not welcome it, so well done.

I welcome the Minister’s statement, but can she confirm that developers and those in the construction sector in Northern Ireland, where steel is really important, will be able to secure steel as a certainty, and at a reasonable price?

Can she confirm that they will not be tempted to outsource for fear that orders will not be fulfilled, because British steel will be accessible, viable, ready and available to those in Northern Ireland who wish to use it?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words of appreciation. The construction sector is incredibly important when it comes to steel. We are looking at every measure we can take to ensure that people can buy British steel in a way that is competitive and useful for them.

We are looking at procurement and at other measures to make the sector more competitive, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that British Steel provides huge amounts of steel for the construction sector, and we want that to continue.