Sarah Jones

Sarah Jones

Labour — Croydon West

Speaking in the House of Commons on 7 April 2025

Debate

Scunthorpe Steelworks

Contribution

I agree with the hon. Member’s premise that we need to ensure that we have steel production in the UK, although there is some nuance around some of this. High-quality steel is being made, as we speak, for defence purposes by electric arc furnaces. That is perfectly possible; we melt scrap and add about 20% of primary steel. For some things, depending on what we are making—I know too much about the steel industry now—we do not need any primary steel. We are conducting a review of primary steel, which will be finished shortly. Again, neither Tata nor British Steel is a critical supplier to defence programmes at the moment, but we need that steel production, as I said before, so that we can build whatever we might need in the future. Of course, we will work cross-party; if that is his offer, it is very gladly taken.

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