Richard Tice
MP for Boston and Skegness · Reform UK · United Kingdom
“Congratulations to the Government on doing what I have been urging for seven years, which is to take this strategic national asset into public ownership. What is needed now is a comprehensive, bold vision for the blast furnaces. I am concerned about the talk about more electric arc furnaces.”
“The dictionary definition of gerrymandering is the manipulation of boundaries to suit a particular party, and decision after decision after decision in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and many, many more have, surprisingly, been the local Labour party’s proposal.”
“East Midlands Railway has cut replacement bus services on a stand-by basis when there is not sufficient railway capacity in peak season. I am concerned that that is because it is deliberately cutting any form of expenditure before going over to Great British Railways.”
“There is complete chaos at the National Energy System Operator. Whistleblowers are phoning politicians to express their concerns about blackouts. Independent investigators have had to be appointed, and NESO had to cut the interconnector for exports, without notice, in order to guarantee supplies.”
“While his own MPs may have sent him off without resorting to VAR, I have some good news for the Prime Minister: under his tenure, 76% of England football matches have been won, which is the greatest, most successful record of any Prime Minister in history.”
“Despite being a foot taller than her, I somehow always found myself looking up to her. When she phoned, I always stood up on my toes: incoming—beware! That was Ann. We will miss her dearly. Also, the Scottish whisky industry has lost a very discerning customer.”
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Every one of 505 lines we hold for Richard Tice, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 11.
“The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent case for the Bill to be passed today. What he is actually saying is that there are specifics that require debate, analysis and discussion in great detail in Committee—that is the whole point of it. If it is not dealt with properly in Committee, it will not pass Third Reading. He is suggesting that because he does not like those specifics, we cannot discuss the Bill in any detail.”
“Let us be honest: these job losses are a direct result of net zero and the previous Government’s electric vehicle targets. Is the Secretary of State aware that car manufacturers across Europe are losing fortunes on EV production? They are trying to delay targets, and what we are witnessing is just the beginning of the slow, agonising, painful and tragic destruction of hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs in the UK automotive industry.”
“I was struck that the Prime Minister’s statement contained not a single reference in to our most important security and trading partner, the United States, particularly at this time of change, with the good news of the election of President Trump. While the Prime Minister was at the COP summit, he may have missed the fact that growth is falling in this country, debt is rising, and the motor industry is panicking as jobs are being destroyed. Just yesterday, Nissan announced further job cuts, as has Ford, because of electric vehicle targets, which are causing irreversible damage to our motor industry.”
“It’s now time to stop talking about this and do something about it with concerted action.” I just hope that the Minister and the Government will find time in this Session to bring forward anti-SLAPP mechanisms in legislation to preserve what we cherish so dearly: free speech.”
“Surely, if we are a beacon of free speech around the world, with the greatest Parliament and the greatest legal system, we should be able to preserve and protect free speech. We have heard lots of shocking examples and evidence, but there are examples elsewhere in the world—states in America, for example—where anti-SLAPP mechanisms have been introduced. As a new Member of this place, I was surprised to hear how long we have been talking about this—years and years. This Government have been elected on a mandate of change, so now seems to be the moment for them to grasp that mandate in this vital issue and say, “Yes.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) on securing this vital debate. I declare an interest, which I have raised with the Speaker’s Office and parliamentary authorities, as I am currently the defendant in a lawsuit. I will refer not to that but to general concepts. We pride ourselves in this country on free speech—the quality of our campaigners, our journalism, our broadcasters and our investigators—so how ironic, embarrassing and frankly humiliating that we should be the global epicentre of SLAPPs designed to prevent exactly that. As the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) said, there is a crisis in free speech now in this country, and a crisis of fear among journalists, authors, writers and broadcasters about what they can and cannot say. How have we got to this situation?”
“My residents in Boston and Skegness want the police on the streets, preventing antisocial behaviour and crime. They do not want our valuable police resources wasted on monitoring tweets for non-crime hate incidents, threatening and bullying residents, and then that record remaining on a database, which can prevent people from getting a job in the future. It is a complete waste of time. Will the Minister and the Home Office scrap those guidelines as an unnecessary use of valuable time and resources?”
“In Boston and Skegness, we want the use of hotels by asylum seekers to stop, as is the case across the country. Under the previous Labour Government 20 years ago, processes and applications were dealt with within three to four weeks, including appeals, and only about 20% of applications were granted asylum. When will the Minister and the Home Office get back to the sensible workmanlike processes that worked 20 year ago?”
“The Secretary of State rightly says that the MOD needs reform. One of the major failures has been the procurement of equipment, which has led to the wasting of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of pounds of taxpayers’ cash. Will he commit to also reform the recruitment of new personnel into the armed forces? Nobody has a good word to say about the outsourcing contract to Capita. Bring it in-house. Will he commit to that?”
“If the incoming President Trump Administration confirm that they are against this dreadful deal, will the Government stop negotiations and apologise to this House, or will they try to force it upon our most important international strategic partner?”
“The right hon. Lady has obviously had lots of letters and emails. Has she had a single one from any farmer who thinks this is a good idea? I have not had any from my constituency of Boston and Skegness.”
“Again, it means that local farmers and entrepreneurs will not have the confidence to invest. Confidence is such a critical word, but confidence in this Government is collapsing in rural communities. It seems the Government want to blight our countryside, including in my constituency, with thousands of ugly pylons and thousands of acres of solar farms. That will not provide food security. The Government are determined to set course on this ridiculous farm tax, but I urge them to have the humility to listen and to look at the results. If investment is down, jobs are down and family farms are down in one or two years’ time, they should accept that they were wrong and reverse it.”
“We all want growth, but growth requires investment. Investment requires confidence, but confidence among rural communities is collapsing, including in Boston and Skegness. Since the Budget, one farmer has cancelled a £1 million expansion plan for his strawberry-growing business. I know another farmer who has cancelled a £300,000 investment in equipment. Just yesterday, I heard from a hospitality entrepreneur in my constituency who has cancelled another investment in a new pub. It means less growth, fewer jobs and less incentive for young people to stay in our rural communities. That is the reality. Confidence in the Environment Agency is also collapsing. Just yesterday afternoon, I was on the riverbank at Wainfleet and saw the consequences of failed management, the failure to dredge our rivers and the failure to protect our riverbanks.”
“Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) rightly identified and as the Minister may know, there is a serious risk that they will use the renegotiation of the energy deal, which ends at the same time, to create unacceptable pressure and leverage for the fishing deal. It is therefore vital that the two elements are decoupled and that we work on the basis that no deal is better than a bad deal. Frankly, that is true for both those renegotiations, but they must not be linked, otherwise we will end up with a bad deal. I urge the Minister and the Government to start from that position.”
“So 2026 is an opportunity for the great reset—an opportunity to take back control of our waters properly and to start again. We all know that the previous Government, under the leadership of Theresa May and then Boris Johnson, failed to secure the promised good deal for fishing, in the same way that they failed to secure a good deal for Northern Ireland. In business, we all know that no deal is better than a bad deal, and that must be the starting position for the negotiation. EU members are desperate to start negotiating as soon as possible, but as the hon.”
“It is a pleasure, Mr Efford, to serve under your chairmanship, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) on securing this debate. Boston has a long and rich history in fishing; indeed, fish landed in Lincolnshire ports constituted about 20% of all fish eaten in Britain in the 20th century. However, my fishermen in Boston have been let down by decades of European Union membership—they were delighted to leave the EU—and by over-regulation. In fact, they are deeply concerned about the regulatory pressures from the Environment Agency and from inshore fisheries and conservation authorities, which frankly seem designed more to strangle what is left of our fishing industry than to enhance it.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that interesting intervention. The key to securing any distribution is having the quotas; then we can talk about distribution—and, yes, that can take time. But I repeat that no deal is better than a bad deal. If we allow ourselves to go into the negotiation on the basis that we must do a deal, we will end up with a bad deal. We have been there; we can do so much better. This is a great opportunity, so let us grasp it.”
“That is the key point; this is the moment for the great reset. We are in agreement: the hon. Lady rightly highlighted that many of the problems arose not from leaving the European Union but from the failures of the previous Government. We are critical of them for negotiating a bad deal and of civil servants for implementing it with unnecessary regulation. Would she agree that this is the opportunity?”
“Given the dissatisfaction we are hearing about connectivity in Northern Ireland, which is a critical part of the UK, it seems to me that in the next review of the public service obligation, the Minister must commit to include Belfast City airport and a review of the operators. Will he do so?”
“The Minister has just agreed that there is a crisis of capacity for SEND provision in the state sector, yet the Government’s deeply misguided VAT policy on school fees is exaggerating this crisis and the crisis of EHCP assessments. Surely the right thing to do is grant a VAT exemption on SEND children to ease the crisis.”
“Are the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Chancellor aware that so serious are the consequences of this policy that the heads of farming families in their 80s and 90s are seriously considering committing suicide before it comes into place? [Hon. Members: “Shame!”] Shame on you! [Interruption.]”
“Q8. The Government’s own independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, has said repeatedly recently that it is important in incidents of terrorism that the authorities put out more information sooner in order to prevent an information gap. Does the Prime Minister agree?”
“We hear a lot about “14 years of failure”, but it seems to me that this Government have had 14 years to learn how the ministerial code works. In reality, the announcement made by the Chancellor last week moved the markets: bond yields went up, which means that mortgages and people’s bills have gone up. The right thing for the Government to do is to apologise.”
“Does the hon. Member seriously think that people in my constituency and across Lincolnshire and the east of England will be happy with thousands and thousands of huge pylons going through their area, damaging the value of their properties and businesses?”
“Even the jury in the Chris Kaba case wrote a letter to the judge—they wanted it to be read out, but he decided not to—in which they expressed astonishment and a lack of confidence in the IOPC and the CPS. The point about accountability relates not just to police officers, but to the IOPC and the CPS. Does the Home Secretary still have confidence in the leadership of the IOPC and the CPS, or should that be changed?”
“First, I put on the record my support and gratitude to all our frontline police officers in the firearms departments for the difficult, challenging and high-pressure work that they do, including Sergeant Blake and his family. There is much to commend in your statement, Home Secretary, so I welcome it, particularly the anonymity for officers facing investigation and the timeline for the review, which is really important. Two critical words came up in your statement: “confidence” and “accountability”. There is a lot of concern that confidence in the Independent Office for Police Conduct and in the Crown Prosecution Service is falling. In fact, among police officers, particularly those in the firearms departments, confidence is frankly collapsing, and that is not a good place to be.”
“Does the Home Secretary share my deep concerns about two-tier justice, given that some people who say some bad, stupid things on social media can be arrested, charged and jailed within a matter of weeks, but some people who brutally and violently assault police officers have not even been charged many months later?”
“I happen to know that that strategy is basically drafted and written, with just a few i’s to dot and t’s to cross. I have been told that that draft is very much there.”
“Lots of people say, “Don’t worry, Richard. We’ll be a world leader in this stuff.” Really—a world leader? I suggest that the only things we will be a world leader in are naivety, stupidity and negligence. The truth is that behind our backs, other countries making steel, growing their economies and enjoying cheap energy are laughing at us. They cannot believe how foolish we are. They cannot believe that we are serious about destroying some of our finest manufacturing industries, but they will take it. They are benefiting and we are losing. This is an absolute disaster. One might ask, “What can we do about it?” I have a plan and most of it is achievable by this Government. The first thing is that the Business Secretary has promised us a new steel strategy next March.”
“It is all very well saying that people can retrain, but if someone earning up there retrains and all of a sudden is earning down there, I do not call that progress—I call that going backwards. The truth is that this issue will have a devastating impact on those communities. I feel that the unions have let down their members and betrayed them. A year ago, I wanted to go and talk to more than a thousand steelworkers in Port Talbot. I met a couple of brave union leaders in secret in a quiet room. I said I wanted to talk to everybody and tell them about the madness of what is going on but, oh no. The union leaders banned me from talking to the steelworkers and telling them the truth. Here we are today, with thousands of jobs sacrificed on the altar of net zero in Port Talbot, with the risk facing Scunthorpe in front of us.”
“The oil and gas industry is under huge threat at the moment because of net zero, which is again devastating. There is a huge loss of the multiplier effect, skills are disappearing and families are concerned. In Port Talbot and Scunthorpe, there are not thousands but tens of thousands of jobs directly and indirectly dependent on this industry, which could disappear within 12 months. It is not just the jobs; it is the families, the partners, the spouses, the wives, the children. That makes hundreds of thousands of people devastated by this. These are seriously well paid jobs: the average value of a steel job is about 50% more than the average salary in the local area.”
“We are promised that the bills will come down, but I was at an event last week with someone who is advising the World Economic Forum and the G20 nations about renewable projects, and he admitted—in a defining moment for me—that without subsidies and Government intervention, renewables cannot be viable. That means, by definition, that they are more expensive and that those who are obsessed with them in this country will not bring the bills down. At some point, there will be a day of reckoning. The third reason why this is a catastrophe is what I call the community interest. We saw the devastation in the coal-mining communities in the 1980s; when I have been campaigning, I still hear people talk about that. That was absolutely devastating.”
“Compare that to the size of the economy and the importance of the multiplier effect. I would suggest to the House that it is vital that we keep steel manufacturing going in a sizeable way in the United Kingdom. Not to do so would cause a self-inflicted wound, driven by the main two political parties’ obsession with net zero. That is the reality. Net zero, and the increase in renewable energy capacity, is directly linked to the increase in our electricity prices, and to the fact that we are becoming ever more uncompetitive. The Tories started it, and now under the new net zero zealot-in-chief—the new Secretary of State for Energy—it is being accelerated.”
“I call it bubble-up economics: when we create and make things, it bubbles up from the lowest point, and the money circulates around the economy. That is hugely powerful at a time when everyone is desperately talking about the need for growth. We will not get growth if we export all our jobs and money. We might buy the good that arrives here, but we do not benefit from the multiplier effect, and therefore we lose the power of growth. Some will say, “Hang on. Tata lost lots of money over the last 10 years or so. It’s not viable.” Well, let us just take a look at its losses, shall we? Leave aside the one-in-100-year event of 2020, cumulatively, in the overall scheme of things—relative to the multiplier effect—its losses frankly amount to a decent round of drinks. Let us call it £100 million a year, give or take.”
“Because it is all made in India. We make no paracetamol in the United Kingdom and the sun was not shining in mid-2020, as we all remember. It is all very well those who believe in free markets and globalisation to the detriment of everything saying, “Well, you can just buy it from elsewhere,” but what happens if the sun is not shining? What happens if there is some terrible event in the world and we cannot buy steel elsewhere? That exposes us, because steel is strategically important, so we must be able to produce it here in the UK. The second reason why I think a potential catastrophe is facing us is the economic interest. There is a thing called the multiplier effect: if we make and manufacture things here in the United Kingdom with our own jobs and money, the wealth we create circulates around the economy.”
“It is strategically important to be able to make the strongest steel. There are genuine concerns that if we have no blast furnaces, we will not be able to make primary steel. Some say that with new technology and direct reduced iron, the strength of steel produced in electric arc furnaces may, give or take, equal what can be produced in blast furnaces, but we cannot take the risk. We must have that capacity. Hon. Members may say, “Well, why not have a bit of each?” My late grandmother, when faced with a choice of desserts, would say, “I’ll have a bit of each.” There is nothing wrong with that, but we cannot have nothing. For someone who likes desserts, there is nothing worse than having no dessert at all. Four years ago, in the middle of 2020, we nearly ran out of paracetamol, which is pretty important. Why?”
“Because our electricity prices are so high, these electric arc furnaces are quite likely to be less viable than is the case when it comes to concerns about the viability of blast furnaces. Five and a half years ago, I gave a press conference in Scunthorpe. I said back then that the Conservative Government should not sell British Steel to the Chinese. They ignored my advice—not for the first time and probably not the last—but we are where we are. We face catastrophe, for three critical reasons. The first is that steel is a strategic national interest. After food and water, steel is the third most important component of a modern civilisation. Without steel, we would have no internet, no cars, no buildings, no infrastructure—nothing. We would be back to mud huts; I do not call that progress.”
“Now that the truth has been told to us, which is that electricity prices in the United Kingdom are the highest in the developed world—in the House of Commons the other week, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade admitted to me that there was an issue with industrial electricity prices—my real fear is that the electric arc furnaces that have been promised down at Port Talbot, and potentially promised in Scunthorpe if the blast furnaces there close, will not actually be viable. If something is not viable and we are asking a firm to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in it, they will not build it—and that is before National Grid informs us, “Oh, in Scunthorpe we can’t get you a grid connection for the electricity that you need to run an electric arc furnace.” You genuinely could not make some of this stuff up.”
“The majority of all new steel-making capacity around the world being built as we speak comes from blast furnaces. There is a reason for that. And here in the UK, imports of steel from the likes of China, India and Vietnam are soaring. Hang on—I thought we were supposed to be world leaders in steel, but 66% of all steelmaking around the world happens in nations that either have no net zero targets or have targets that are general and way beyond 2050.”
“I fear that the blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, owned by British Steel, part of the Chinese group Jingye, are very likely to close, and that would be an absolute disaster. Steelmaking, manufacturing, in the United Kingdom has halved in the last 10 years or so. We would be left as a complete rump. Think about it: we would be the only G20 nation without a blast furnace except Saudi Arabia and the only G20 nation with no general steel-making capacity whatever. I think there is a lesson in that. Perhaps it is not so smart to lose all our steel-making capacity at a time when 71% of all steel manufactured around the world is made in blast furnaces. Even if all the electric arc furnaces that have been announced are built, which of course they will not be, we will only get to a balance, in 2050, of about 50-50.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the steel industry. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I want you to imagine that you are standing at a railway station in deepest rural India. You look down at the tracks on the ground and you see those immortal words “Sheffield Steel 1895”. That happened to me six and a half years ago. It sent a complete shiver down my spine—a shiver of pride in what we have given to the world, what we have created, what we have achieved. For 130 years, those railway tracks have been there, yet fast-forward to today and we face what I believe is a potential catastrophe. Let us just take stock of where we are. I think we are potentially within six to 12 months of having zero general steel-making capacity in the United Kingdom. Just think about that.”
“It would stop us wasting tens of billions of pounds and stop blighting our countryside with thousands and thousands of pylons, including in my constituency. The first four components of my five-point plan the Government can and should do to protect our steel industry, which is strategically vital. Not to do so is negligent to the point of criminality.”
“The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero wants more and more wind turbines, but as I understand it not a single bit of British steel is used in all those turbines, which all come from overseas. If we want more turbines—some people do; some do not—maybe we should make it a condition that we use British steel to grow our own economy with more jobs and more money. Those four things plus the fifth thing are all deliverable by this Government. That is what I urge the Minister to consider. The fifth thing is the right thing to do. I accept that it is not going to happen, but if we want cheaper electricity and to be more competitive, the fastest way to do it is to scrap net zero. That would bring down prices.”
“America is doing it to protect its own steel industry and we should do the same. Unbelievably, according to the House of Commons Library, which helpfully produced a 50-page report yesterday, just two weeks ago, far from increasing tariffs we had to reduce tariffs on imported steel because Port Talbot has closed. Seriously, you couldn’t make this up. It is absolute insanity that we are now reducing tariffs in order to import steel. With the long-term planning that should have happened under the Conservative Government, we could have worked out that if we shut Port Talbot we would be short of rolled steel. What are we going to do about it? That is what has gone on. So that is the third part of my plan. The fourth part is to buy British.”
“The Minister indicates that I may be wrong. This is urgent and we cannot wait six to 12 months. We cannot run the risk of civil servants saying, “I’m sorry, but we haven’t got it done by March; it will be the summer.” I urge the Minister and her team to say, “Let’s get this out before Christmas.” My five-point plan is first to take a strategic stake in British Steel to guarantee that the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe will not close. We cannot run that risk. Otherwise, if the electric arc furnaces are not built, we have nothing—niente, zip. The second part of my plan is to scrap the carbon taxes and the potential carbon border adjustment mechanism. The third thing is to stop the dumping of cheap imports from nations such as China. That requires, if necessary, appropriate tariffs and protectionism.”
“That is the critical objective and the Government have that responsibility. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered the steel industry.”
“However, there is a serious risk that that will not be the case. Electric arc furnaces are much more viable in the United States because, as the hon. Member referred to, the electricity price in the US is between a quarter and a third of ours. The reason for that is completely the opposite of what the Minister said. It is because the US has cheap gas—its own gas, which is shale gas—that allows it to produce cheap electricity. We have identified the risks and we share many of the same ambitions. We differ on certain issues, but it is absolutely critical that the Government lose no time at all and push forward hard. I am encouraged by the ambition to increase capability and the ambition to ramp up investment, but we have to understand something. I do not see how we can get more investment if we cannot get electricity prices down.”
“We cannot be here in a year’s time hearing that Jingye has said, “It can’t be done, we’ve got to shut the blast furnace, it’s going to shut”, and the Government are not ready for that. I think that is what this debate has done; it has highlighted the serious risks out there. I understand that the Minister cannot share the details of commercial conversations that are clearly going on, but that is what we must be prepared for. I have asked for a commitment, and I believe that the best way to secure that commitment in Scunthorpe is to have some form of commercial stake. Where I think we differ is that there is a confidence within the Government—the hon. Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) referred to this specifically—that the electric arc furnaces will be attractive and commercially viable for Tata and Jingye.”
“I am grateful, Mrs Harris, for the opportunity to wind up the debate. I thank all the hon. Members who have made contributions to the debate, and I thank the Minister for her closing remarks. It seems to me that there is a sense of unity about the ambition—we have to protect our critically important steel industry in the United Kingdom. The Government are probably correct that they have been handed a bit of a hospital pass on this vital issue. They understand that. However, the truth is that I am an impatient guy, so I will not resile from asking the Minister and the Department to move at incredible pace to secure the industry and the jobs, and—as the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) said—to reduce the uncertainty. This debate has enabled all of us to highlight the risks ahead.”
“We all want the killings to stop, we abhor the deaths, and we all want a ceasefire as soon as possible, but clearly the fastest way to a ceasefire is for Hamas to return the hostages, and for Hamas and Hezbollah to stop attacking Israel with missiles. That is the fastest way to a ceasefire. The western nations have failed to convince those proscribed terror organisations—this House appears to have forgotten about that—to stop making these attacks. Israel has concluded, therefore, that the fastest way to defend itself and ensure the safety of the region is to destroy Hamas and destroy Hezbollah.”