Bill Esterson
MP for Sefton Central · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, our energy supply and our energy security are not a question of having either oil and gas, or renewables; they are about both. It is a great pity that proper process was not followed in 2022 or 2023. [ Interruption.”
“I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to continuing Britain’s global leadership on climate action, including by going to COP31. I also welcome his focus on breathing space for people and businesses, but, as he said, it will take a lot more than that to deliver the growth and reindustrialisation that he is so committed to.”
“Last week the Committee heard from Claire Dykta, the director of strategy and policy at NESO, who told us: “Operational decisions are taken by authorised, trained personnel only.” Her comments were confirmed by Alastair Martin, the chief strategy officer at Flexitricity, who, in the same session, said: “I do not think the idea that the he…”
“As the Minister has just said, new nuclear is essential for energy security. It is also essential as an alternative career for workers in oil and gas.”
“Paul and Susan Robinson each worked for the Health and Safety Executive for more than 40 years. They have not been able to plan for their retirement since finishing work last year; they have been living off their savings and the small loan that they have had. They are typical of the dozens of constituents who have contacted me.”
“Hudson primary school in my constituency does a brilliant job. It is a family hub, it specialises in support for children with SEND and autism, and it has a nursery, but its building, which is 80 years old, suffers from a high water table that brings damp, mould and structural problems for the building—as does occasional flooding.”
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“The only part of that partnership missing at the moment is for the Government to step up. We have shown the way forward, and the CBI has shown the way forward. Tony Danker of the CBI has now said: “More than half of business investment is subject to business rates; this unfair, uncompetitive system has become a tax on investment that simply isn’t fit for purpose.” He has also said: “The Labour Party should be applauded for grasping the nettle and putting forward a pro-growth, pro-investment package of reforms that will reflect our green ambitions, spur the economic recovery”. That is the right way forward.”
“He has said that the current arrangements are “overdue an overhaul” and that “anyone wanting to invest in new equipment—especially green technologies”, which are crucial to the car industry— “sees their business rates rise” which “is a perverse disincentive to investment and productivity improvement”. He puts it so well. It is true in manufacturing, and it is true in retail and in our high streets, which face competition from the out-of-town and online giants. It is essential, if we are to recover for those high streets, businesses and communities, that we see this turned around. Such an approach has the support of the trade unions. With the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, as the union representing shop workers, in exactly the same place as the shop owners, we potentially have a partnership.”
“Friend the Member for Leeds West has come forward with some credible alternatives for an interim approach that uses an increase in the digital services tax as a windfall and, in the long term, looks at the international approach to corporation tax and an overhaul of that. To answer the question of how we replace the £30 billion that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) mentioned, we have to work with the business community and the trade unions. We have to work in partnership to find alternatives that are workable in this country and internationally. That has to be the way forward. At the moment, we have a curb on investment as a number of business groups have made clear. It is something that Mike Hawes of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has pointed out.”
“That is the case for all those 450-plus businesses in my borough alone and for businesses in all our constituencies up and down the country, so I am delighted that we are taking the issue forward as a party. Frankly, to those Conservative Members who say that their party still has the mantle of the party of business, I say that I think every business in the country knows the Prime Minister’s attitude, which was summed up by one short four-letter word. That is a topic he has returned to again and again. They collectively need to take a close look at themselves, the behaviour of the man who leads them and his attitude towards business and towards supporting our entrepreneurs, our wealth creators and those people who provide employment for so many of our constituents. It is essential that an alternative system is found. My hon.”
“The problem is that the support during covid was simply not enough to avoid those debts going up—it is a story being told again and again. Businesses such as MSP need ongoing support. I hope that we will hear something next week to deal with that in the immediate term, but they need longer-term support too, which is why the overhaul of business rates is such an important part of the picture. Unless they get that support, they will struggle to play their part in the recovery. There are high street businesses such as Coulson Flooring, which is run by another constituent who has to pay his business rates whether he is making any money or not. It is a thriving business that was hit hard by covid, just like everybody else on the high street. He needs that longer-term support too.”
“On the question of how that would be paid for, I ask the Minister how other countries can raise business taxes with much lower property taxes. What can we learn from them? We are so far behind because we have the highest business taxes of any major country in the world, according to the OECD. That has to be addressed. It is absolutely right that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West has brought this debate forward today, especially as businesses face huge debts as a result of covid. The last thing they need is a business rates bill dropping through their door and adding to that pressure. I will give a couple of constituency examples. MSP is in the events and creative sector and is owned by my constituent Lisa Richards, who makes the point that she now has huge debts.”
“They need the kind of support that the Welsh Government are giving, as we have heard, to be extended by the Government now. They need longer-term reform and, in the end, the scrapping of the business rates system if they are to thrive. The Minister made much of international comparisons. I wanted to intervene on him; it is a shame he did not let me. He named a number of countries that have significantly lower business property taxes than this country, so any business in this country that wants to compete with them faces an immediate competitive disadvantage. In Germany, business property taxes are four times lower than they are in this country. For our manufacturers to compete with that is very difficult, so they face a significant disadvantage.”
“Twenty years ago, I took a lease out on a commercial premises, and I was staggered by how much the business rates were. In fact, many in this Chamber pay business rates on their constituency premises. I had to pay for that, whether or not I had any income coming in the door. That fixed cost of doing business is the challenge. We face inequity in the system of business taxation, which is why it is so out of date and needs to be replaced when set against the competition from the online giants, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West rightly said earlier. More than 450 businesses in the borough of Sefton alone face going out of business as a result of problems that have been exacerbated during the covid crisis. They need action on business rates for the longer term, not just now.”
“Both the Minister and the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) have said that they really want to do something about business rates, and they have— [ Interruption. ] I know the hon. Member said he wanted to do it. They are challenging us to come up with a way of replacing the revenue, but they cannot come up with one themselves. I want to know what their plan is as an alternative. Perhaps the Minister or his colleague, depending on who is winding up the debate, will tell us the Government’s plan for doing so. As the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) said, this has been going on for a very long time. The Government have been talking about reviewing business rates for a very long time. I ran a business for many years.”
“Empty supermarket shelves, increasing prices of building materials and shortages of blood tests and flu jabs are an indication of a very serious set of crises. We are 90,000 short of drivers in this country, which is more than twice the figure in the other countries that the Secretary of State mentioned. According to a constituent of mine, only eight tests were available at the Switch Island testing centre in my constituency last week. Taking short cuts that undermine safety cannot possibly be the answer to this crisis. There is a problem right now. Lorry drivers need it sorting out, consumers need it sorting out and businesses need it sorting out, as does the country. What is the answer—here, now, today—to this shortage?”
“We all know that a negative test is a crucial risk indicator. NHS staff are off work, restaurants and pubs are being forced to close, and there are empty supermarket shelves. This is a time-critical problem in essential parts of society, so when are the Government going to publish a list of sectors where staff can use a negative test result so that they can go to work now? Making employers apply for an exemption is simply not going to be enough, and the economy and society simply cannot wait until 16 August.”
“Good negotiation means there should be give and take in trade deals, but the Conservatives have proven that they will give, give, give, with little expectation of anything in return, just for the PR of signing a flashy deal. The story of the TAC so far is that, far from supporting our farmers, the Tories’ negotiating objective seems to be to give away the farm shop.”
“Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) voiced the suspicion of many that the TAC is being set up only to give the Government cover for lowering standards. The Labour party would buy British, which means supporting British farmers and British fishers, and encouraging supermarkets to have more British produce on their shelves. Where Labour would make, buy and sell more in Britain to support our domestic industries, the Conservatives seem to want to buy more that is made—or, in this case, grown—abroad to sell in Britain, and outsourced to the highest bidder with the lowest standards. It is no good the Minister saying that because it is Australia, New Zealand or the United States, we should sign whatever we are offered. Good negotiation means trade deals that do not undercut our domestic industries, for goodness’ sake.”
“The latest published remit is a clear attempt to scale back the previously briefed role of the TAC, and is a transparent attempt by the Secretary of State to avoid the embarrassment of the commission criticising what it called the “sell-out” deals that she is trying to get over the line with Australia and New Zealand, as happened last year. Why has the Secretary of State still failed to establish the TAC in permanent form? Why is she dragging her feet on appointing its chair and members? Why will she not say what support it will be provided with in undertaking its duties? The failure to set up the TAC to do the proper job of scrutiny shows that the Government have no desire to support British farmers or farm workers, or to maintain high animal welfare standards in the UK. No wonder my hon.”
“The RSPCA, the NFU and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee all have the same concern that the TAC’s role has been watered down—a far cry from scrutiny during negotiations, or an ability to ensure that high farming standards are maintained by resisting clauses in trade agreements that undermine those standards. The TAC’s role will be limited to advising where domestic legislation has to change because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) correctly said, international agreements override domestic law.”
“On 6 November, the Secretary of State told NFU Wales: “We have no intention of ever striking a deal that doesn’t benefit farmers, but we have provided checks and balances in the form of the Trade and Agriculture Commission. That is an important reassurance as every deal is different.” She did not mention assessing potential changes to statutory requirements, which she now says is the remit. The crucial check that we need on the deals proposed with Australia and New Zealand, which the Government are now pretending they never promised, is whether they would benefit British farmers.”
“In November, the Secretary of State said that the TAC would give advice to Parliament on trade and agriculture and that it so doing would allow MPs properly to scrutinise the deals the Government were negotiating. That changed significantly in June, when the Secretary of State said: “The TAC’s role is specific and focused: it will look at the text of an FTA to see if the measures relating to trade in agricultural products have any implications for maintaining our domestic statutory protections—specifically those relating to animal and plant health, animal welfare and the environment”. Ministers can say all they like about the TAC fulfilling the statutory remit it was given, but that is not what they said when they announced the same remit to head off a Back-Bench rebellion.”
“There are many areas where we would like a deal with the US, including a worker-led trade policy and putting carbon reduction at the heart of agreements, to name but two. On agriculture, however, we have serious and legitimate concerns. If the United Kingdom has a deal with Australia that allows imports of meat that has been produced to low welfare standards, the US will demand the same. As the Minister knows, the US agricultural sector has long wanted access to our market because its low-cost production would allow it to dominate at the expense of UK farmers. The TAC was set up to head off a rebellion on the Conservative Benches over the Trade Bill and the Agriculture Bill because Conservative MPs knew—as we did, and as the terms of the deal with Australia show—that British farming was being sold down the river.”
“That all means that consumers could soon face supermarket shelves stocked with imported beef from cattle raised on enormous bare feedlots, or with pork from pigs that have been forced to breed in restrictive sow stalls. As the UK’s procurement standards allow low-welfare imports, those products could even find their way on to the menus of school children and hospital patients, who do not have a choice about their food. All that means that our farmers face potential competition from high volumes of meat that has been produced more cheaply on the basis of poorer animal welfare standards. That is before a deal with Brazil—the same Brazil with which Ministers said they wanted a deal when they predicted an Amazonian Brexit boost—or with the United States.”
“That would mean lower-quality goods for British consumers and an even more difficult trading environment for farmers, whose margins are already incredibly slim. The Government cannot say they were not warned. As the RSPCA pointed out last month, the Australia trade deal will “set a dangerous precedent on animal welfare” and encourage other countries with similarly poor welfare standards to demand the same favourable terms when they negotiate with us. Regardless of what Conservative Members say, that is the reality. This will be the benchmark for future deals and what others want to negotiate with us. Despite what the Minister might claim shortly, the Australia deal involves the Government giving away quotas that allow 60 times the current level of zero-tariff beef imports straight away—not after 15 years, as Ministers like to claim.”
“Very well said, Ms Bardell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on an excellent opening speech. I agree with very much of what he said, as will become clear. Standards in food and animal welfare are an important part of a functioning modern society. Standards prevent abuse and dangerous practices by businesses and individuals, and they prevent animals from being kept in such conditions and treated in such ways that, if we saw them, would make us shudder. However, the Conservatives have a problem with standards. One need only look at the proposed Australia trade deal. If the deal goes through, it will undercut our farming industry and allow the dangers of food imports produced in ways that are not tolerated here, as the hon. Gentleman put it so well.”
“I also plead with the Government and the Minister to take a good look at what Mr Misra of Aintree University Hospital has developed. It is very similar to battlefield first aid and it uses the same principles, with gauze and shellfish enzymes that help blood clotting. We need funding for prevention and funding to save lives when things go wrong. Tackling knife crime is about both. It is about prevention and response, but we need the Government to intervene, reverse those cuts and provide support for prevention and response.”
“I have also given the amazing examples of how Michael Callaghan’s friends saved his life and how Colin McGinty’s inspirational sister, Laura Hughes, is campaigning for bleed control kits, which improve the chances of saving lives. Laura does not know whether a bleed control kit could have saved Colin’s life—or Jacob’s, or Sam’s, or the thousands of lives of knife victims across our country—but she knows that bleed kits would have given them a better chance, had the kits been available. My plea to the Government and the Minister is for long-term funding for prevention to support the long-term relationships that develop the trust that is needed to ensure young people decide not to be involved with serious and violent crime in the first place.”
“They can of course be applied to any situation where someone is bleeding heavily—for example, a road traffic accident. We can only imagine the devastation caused to the families of knife victims. The lives of Sam, Jacob and Colin all ended in violence, and Michael’s life changed forever. He was in a coma and suffered a stroke. He is recovering slowly 10 months after the attack, but as he says, “In time I will recover, but I can’t get Jacob back.” Jacob was his best friend from school. We have heard of the importance of prevention and of investing in the long-term activities needed to disrupt potential knife attacks, and of the need for investment in services and support across organisations and sectors. It is not just a policing matter, or a matter of responding when an attack happens.”
“Colin’s sister, Laura Hughes, is an amazing woman I have had the privilege to get to know a bit recently. Laura and his mum and dad are all dedicated to saving the lives of knife victims in Colin’s memory. I mentioned the way Michael’s friends saved his life. They stopped him bleeding to death while waiting for the paramedics. Laura and Colin’s parents want bleed control kits to be available in public places so that more people can be saved if they are stabbed. Laura is asking for funding for the kits. They were designed by Liverpool surgeon Nikhil Misra as part of the Liverpool KnifeSavers project, and they cost about £95 each. Laura is looking for places to put the kits, which can be used to reduce bleeding while waiting for an ambulance or paramedic.”
“What happened to Sam is the reality of knife crime, as is what happened to Jacob Billington and Michael Callaghan, friends from primary and secondary school, also from Crosby. They were two of the eight people stabbed in Birmingham city centre in September last year by Zephaniah McLeod. Jacob sadly died but Michael was saved, despite the fact that the knife had severed his carotid artery, his jugular vein and his vagus nerve. The quick thinking of their friends saved Michael, but sadly they were unable to do the same for Jacob. I cannot begin to imagine what Jacob’s family have gone through and I know from talking to Michael’s family just how difficult it has been for them. In 2001, 21-year-old Colin McGinty was stabbed 15 times. His killers have histories of violence and were part of the Liverpool underworld of the time.”
“Sam was stabbed through the heart. Sam’s grandad died of a broken heart hours after a court convicted Sam’s killer, Carl Madigan, of murder. Sam’s mum, Gill Radcliffe, told me she found it difficult every single day, for months after Sam’s murder, just to get up and get on with her day. That is the human side, both for the person who dies and for their families and loved ones left behind. Talking of love, Sam loved football and in his memory his mum has been involved in the Liverpool No More Knives campaign, which talks to young people after football matches to encourage them not to use knives. Using sport to get people away from the danger of becoming involved in violent crime is a great example of an effective intervention.”
“That is not a basis on which to build the kinds of relationships, services and successful partnerships that are needed to redirect young people from serious and violent crime in the first place, or to prevent them from picking up a knife and getting involved in crime longer term. In order to have those resources, the cuts made since 2010 have to be addressed. The cuts have to be reversed; that is true for the police and for local government, as well as for grants in the voluntary sector. Those cuts have made it much harder to tackle the causes of knife crime, as well as knife crime itself. The consequences and the human side of knife crime are utterly devastating. Take what happened to Sam Cook from Crosby. Sam was on a night out celebrating his 21st birthday. His girlfriend, Charlotte, was assaulted and Sam intervened to protect her.”
“I fully support the Merseyside police and crime commissioner, Emily Spurrell, in her work. She is reversing some of the significant cuts in police numbers, such as the 1,500 police who have gone in Merseyside since 2010. She is working with partners across all those sectors, building alternatives to crime for young people. This is not just in one borough, but across multiple boroughs, or in one region. Of course, we know the way that criminal gangs and organised crime like to engage with young people to get them to cross county lines, particularly with drugs. Emily Spurrell and Sefton Council for Voluntary Service need help from the Government, because, as I alluded to before, funding is often too short term. It is often last minute, in response to the latest problem that has come up.”
“It means addressing in young people the kind of risk taking and antisocial behaviour that is synonymous with what leads to taking and using a knife and, indeed, with carrying a knife in the first place. It means disruption; it means redirecting. It means finding other interests for young people to be involved in, so that they do not want to be involved in crime in the first place. The projects that Sefton Council for Voluntary Service is responsible for co-ordinating are life-changing for those involved and they save lives, but building relationships takes time, because a relationship of trust is critical, especially for young people. That takes time, and more than a year of funding. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North said, this is a public health approach across numerous agencies in the public, private and voluntary sectors.”
“I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) on an excellent introduction. I feel for her constituents. She told a heartbreaking story about her 16-year-old constituent who was murdered. I am afraid that I shall give some examples of very similar stories from my constituency. In Sefton and across the Liverpool City Region, we have very good practice in the prevention of violent crime, including knife crime—in stopping people being stabbed in the first place, which we would all agree must be the absolute priority. It means working with young people. It means working with parents, as my hon. Friend said, right from the early years, all the way through. It means challenging gang culture in the Liverpool City Region and the carrying of guns and knives.”
“The Foreign Office is funding projects exploring why modern slavery is taking place in Malaysian factories. The Foreign Secretary need not look far; he can just ask the Health Secretary, because the Department of Health and Social Care has purchased more than 760 million rubber gloves for the NHS from Malaysian factories accused of using slave labour during the pandemic. Can the Foreign Secretary tell me—perhaps this time I will get an answer, unlike when I have asked a number of his colleagues this question—why, if the Foreign Office views this as a serious problem, his colleagues in the Department of Huealth and Social Care do not?”
“The Government are relying on increased trade with Malaysia for three quarters of the forecast benefits from joining the CPTPP. That may explain why Ministers have turned a blind eye to the growing use of slave labour in Malaysian factories. If the Minister disputes what I have just said, perhaps he can tell us what proportion of the 760 million medical gloves bought by the Government from Malaysia during the pandemic were manufactured using slave labour?”
“The Minister really was not in a position to answer that question because his Department failed to act on warnings last year from the high commissioner in Kuala Lumpur telling them that their slavery audit function for glove manufacturing was not up to the task. It simply cannot be allowed to continue, so if I write to the Minister with the Government’s current list of glove suppliers—I have a list of 19 companies so far—will he agree to conduct a proper audit of their factories? Bearing in mind what he just said about accession to CPTPP and Malaysia having yet to ratify it, will he also reconsider signing any trade agreement with Malaysia as long as its reliance on slave labour persists?”
“One of the poorest boroughs in the country will face poorer health outcomes. That is the reality of this Bill. How can it possibly be right?”
“Then there is Serco Test and Trace: delays in returning test results, dependence on £1,000-a-day consultants, and unused call centre capacity. All that waste and inefficiency prompts us to ask why Ministers were so committed to outsourcing. The Bill offers some answers. Private companies on new health boards and the centralisation of power point to a potential consolidation of the cronyism and privatisation that have characterised the Conservatives’ approach to the covid crisis. Every day that frontline NHS staff are forced to spend on top-down reorganisation is a day less to tackle waiting lists, address the challenges in social care, and cope with covid. Meanwhile, the reorganisation will take money away from local services, where it is most needed. A prime example is the cut of £253 per patient from Knowsley as a result of the Bill.”
“New facilities, including a new health centre in Maghull in my constituency, would help there. Alongside dealing with the immediate challenges of the pandemic, Labour’s priorities involve addressing the problems caused by those Conservative cuts which predate the crisis: waiting lists, staff recruitment, social care funding, and yes, the need to give our staff a pay rise. After all, who will look after patients if we do not value our staff? Sadly, the Conservatives have rather different priorities. The pandemic has seen companies without a track record—companies that happened to know the right people—making their fortunes. As the National Audit Office confirmed, companies without political contacts had only a 1% chance of succeeding, while £10 million was handed out in contracts without competition.”
“During the pandemic, NHS staff, care workers and public health teams have all gone the extra mile, as they always do, in protecting and caring for people. Health professionals have been ably assisted by a number of former colleagues who had retired and by an army of volunteers, and I thank them all. In government, Labour increased NHS funding by more than 9% a year. Let us compare that with the just 2.5% from the Conservatives before the pandemic, or the £8 billion cut from council social care budgets since 2010. In the Liverpool city region, 50,000 patients are waiting to start routine treatment at Aintree University Hospital alone, of whom a third have waited more than 18 months. Meanwhile, many people find it difficult to get an appointment at their local GP surgery.”
“What a disgrace that the International Trade Secretary chose not to use today’s parliamentary time to introduce the emergency legislation needed to save the steel industry. Think of the 76,000 people who work in the steel industry and their families, for crying out loud! There is a more direct connection between CPTPP and steel, so when the Minister responds to the debate, can he tell us how the Government will ensure that our membership of CPTPP is not used by China as a back-door route to dump steel on the UK market through Vietnam? What specific provisions will the UK Government negotiate—if they are going to negotiate anything—to prevent CPTPP from enabling the dumping of steel in the UK? Finally, will the Government take the action needed by next Wednesday and save our steel industry?”
“It contributes £2.1 billion directly to GDP and another £2.7 billion indirectly, as well as providing 34,000 well-paid skilled jobs in our regions and a further 42,000 jobs in supply chains. That represents a £4.8 billion contribution to the UK economy, as against a possible maximum benefit from joining CPTPP of just £1.8 billion after 15 years. The impact on our economy and our steel communities of losing the British steel industry dwarfs the impact of joining the CPTPP, yet the Secretary of State continues to give all her priority to the latter agenda while resolutely ignoring the former and voting against Labour measures to defend the industry from total ruin. There is still nothing from the Secretary of State on the catastrophic threat to the steel industry from ending the safeguards, which run out next Wednesday.”
“The reason that the projected increase in trade is so small is, of course, that we already have trade deals with seven of the 11 CPTPP countries, with two more on the way with Australia and New Zealand. The truth is that the extra benefits from joining were always going to be very small. Before the Minister repeats the projected figure of a 65% increase in trade by 2030, he would do well to remember that the increase projected by his Department is regardless of whether we join the CPTPP or not. The Secretary of State puts the CPTPP at the top of her list of priorities, but where, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) said, is the action on standing up for British industry and jobs? We have a steel industry that faces an existential threat because of her inaction.”
“If all the existing members of the CPTPP ratify the agreement, we will increase our total trade by £3.3 billion. That is quite a lot less than £9 trillion. To put it in context, that total estimate of £3.3 billion equates to about a third of our annual trade with Luxembourg, and £1.7 billion of exports is about 15% less than we export to Kazakhstan each year. Joining the trans-Pacific partnership will produce an increase in GDP over 15 years of just 0.08%, and if Malaysia maintains its refusal to ratify the agreement, as it is threatening to do, that will fall to 0.017%. In real money, that is £400 million, so I suppose the Secretary of State could cover the cost of two new royal yachts instead of one.”
“The 42,000 care home residents who have died of coronavirus during the pandemic are, sadly, just a recent example of how our social care system is failing. The Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street 700 days ago and promised to fix the social care crisis. The bereaved families and everyone whose family depends on our wonderful social care workers deserve answers. Social care staff cannot do this on their own. Those who need the crisis to be fixed need certainty, not the ambiguity of “later this year”. So Minister, no more delays—give us a date. Tell us: when will the Government finally publish their plan and fix the social care crisis?”
“Happy birthday, Mr Speaker. The Trade Remedies Authority has made a deeply flawed recommendation to withdraw half of all the safeguards on steel. If the recommendation is implemented, it is likely to lead to a flood of steel imports, with potentially disastrous consequences for the steel industry, communities and livelihoods. The Government’s own regulations do not allow them to retain the safeguards unless the Trade Remedies Authority advises them to do so. The Secretary of State has already said that the regulations need to be reviewed, so will Ministers accept our offer to work together to find a way to retain these vital safeguards and, in so doing, live up to the commitment made by the Trade Secretary to do whatever it takes to protect our steel industry?”
“Ninety-six people died at Hillsborough, including 18 people from the borough of Sefton. That included Kevin Williams, one of the youngest victims, whose mum, Anne, campaigned so hard to achieve the new inquest. Despite the coroner’s verdict, no one was held accountable of unlawful killing at that new inquest. Instead, the loved ones of the bereaved families continue to be smeared to this day. The Justice Secretary said that he was committed to changing the law, so I ask him: how quickly will he introduce the Hillsborough law? Will it deliver parity of legal funding for bereaved families? Will it include a duty of candour on public officials? In short, will it ensure that no one is ever denied justice in such a cruel way ever again?”
“Members on all sides will work with the Government to support jobs and communities. The existential threat of lifting half of the safeguards means there may be just 21 days to save British steel.”
“Hence the recommendation by them for the removal of some safeguards. The economic tests which TRID and the TRA must apply, according to their own regulations, do not provide the Secretary of State for International Trade with the ability to take into account wider factors of strategic national interest when deciding whether or not to reject a recommendation from them. The Business Secretary said he was “committed to a strategic presence of steel in the UK.” —[ Official Report , 25 May 2021; Vol. 696, c. 233.] The International Trade Secretary said that she will do “whatever it takes to protect our steel industry.” The two Secretaries of State must keep their promises and allow the safeguards to remain beyond 30 June while the weaknesses and trade remedies regulations are fixed—they promised to do this.”
“It seems almost certain that the European Union will retain its section 232 tariffs beyond 30 June, meaning that any global overproduction of steel will likely flood the UK, crush domestic supply and have potentially catastrophic consequences for the industry and communities here in Britain. That existential threat to the industry is a strong argument for maintaining all existing trade defence measures for steel, but TRID, and now the TRA, is forced to prioritise the unimpeded functioning of a global market because that is what it says in the regulations which direct their decision making. The regulations do not envisage the maintenance of the safeguards that domestic producers should be able to expect from their Government—these take second place for our trade remedies body.”
“The sector directly employs more than 30,000 people, supports a further 41,100 jobs in high-value supply chains, makes a £2.8 billion direct contribution to UK GDP and supports a further £3.6 billion in its supply chains. Steel is a vital asset—we must protect it in the national interest. However, in making its draft recommendation, TRID failed to take into account the reality of the steel supply chain. The full spectrum of measures is designed to protect the viability of steel as a whole, not just individual production lines. Removing safeguards would mean that the manufacture of steel sections, tubes, wire rods and plates in the UK becomes unviable.”
“During the Committee stage of the Trade Act 2021, I argued that there should be an independent body to make recommendations on trade remedies, which would also take into account domestic economic considerations, but the recent recommendations by TRID show that the regulations that were set out in its mandate, which now also govern the newly established Trade Remedies Authority, are simply not fit for purpose. Steel manufacturing is a critical national asset. Steel produced in Britain is used to make ships for the Royal Navy and wind turbines to meet our climate obligations. The construction of a nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C is using Welsh steel, and 1.3 million tonnes of steel are required for the construction of High Speed 2.”