Mr Andrew Snowden

Mr Andrew Snowden

Conservative — Fylde

Speaking in the House of Commons on 7 April 2025

Debate

Scunthorpe Steelworks

Contribution

The Minister used the interesting stat that 53% of the world’s steel is produced by China. If we look back at the lead-up to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the way that Russia started to dominate the nuclear fuel market in particular by pushing out western providers, we see that there is a reason why China and Russia are behaving this way: they want to control the raw materials that are critical for national security around the world. This House is debating the prospect of a Chinese-owned company turning off our blast furnaces in this country in a month’s time. That cannot be an acceptable position to be in. This has been asked several times, but it has not been answered: will the Minister commit to ordering the raw materials to keep those furnaces on, if necessary? She said in response to a question on primary steel that a consultation was under way on a strategy, and that we would look at what we needed to do. It is clear what we need to do: produce primary steel.

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