Sarah Jones

The inheritance the Government received from the Conservative party was nothing short of a disgrace on steel: over a decade of lurching from crisis to crisis, with no clear plan to safeguard the future of a competitive domestic steel industry. This Government are determined to change that. We have been working hard over the summer to set a clear forward direction on steel and resolve a number of complex issues that were only made worse by the indifference of the last Government. Steel has been one of my Department’s priorities since our first day in office. We are standing by our commitment to spend £2.5 billion to rebuild the steel industry. That is in addition to the £500 million for Tata Steel. The funding will harness public and private investment to secure jobs and boost growth. We will take action to improve the wider business environment for the sector, including reducing energy bills and enabling more green UK-made steel to be used in our infrastructure projects. The Government are clear, as the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) has made very clear, that decarbonisation must not mean de-industrialisation. Discussions regarding the transformation of Port Talbot have continued at pace over recent weeks, involving the company, the workforce and the Welsh Government. We are also in ongoing talks with British Steel in a similar vein. More widely, in our first days in office we hosted steel union leaders to join us around the table and discuss our shared commitment to achieving a sustainable, profitable UK steel industry. The Secretary of State and I also met regularly with key industry stakeholders. We know that this is not easy, but we are determined to create a brighter future for steel than the one we inherited.