Contribution
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised that question, because it was mentioned by a number of Members during the debate. To go back to the point about having a business environment that creates a profitable and investable steel industry, energy is clearly part of that. Some of the changes that the Government have already made—increasing the rebate on the supercharger from 60% to 90%, or the British industrial competitiveness scheme, which will support some of the downstream industry—will be particularly helpful in supporting not only the steel industry but other parts of heavy industry between now and 2030, which is when the Government’s clean power mission will come fully online. We anticipate that at that point, we will have not only clean energy, but secure and lower-cost energy.
If we consider the timescale of some of the investments in steel companies that we are talking about—not only multiple-year investments in order to commission, but multiple-decade investments beyond that—we can see that we have a pathway on energy that will enable us to get from now to 2030 and beyond. The Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who is not currently in his place, was concerned about this issue as well. He was also concerned that the UK has the highest energy prices in Europe, but we do not currently, and it is certainly our plan to ensure that our energy prices for industry are competitive with Europe in future.
Returning to the amendments that have been tabled, there was quite a lot of discussion about the sunset clause in the Bill. There were a number of objections to it, but the case for its continuation was made extremely well by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer). As it stands today, the Government have no intention of extending the sunset period, but we recognise that we are living through particularly volatile times. There is geopolitical and economic uncertainty, which is likely to have a bearing on the steel sector in ways that it is difficult for us to see at the moment. As such, our view is that it is simply pragmatic to include this level of flexibility in the Bill, and of course, regulations made under that clause would be subject to the affirmative procedure.
It is important that I address some of the concerns of the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies), who spoke with great passion and commitment about the importance of the steel industry throughout the whole of Wales. There is often considerable discussion of Port Talbot in this House, but as she rightly set out, there are also steelworks in Llanwern, Cardiff, Newport, Trostre and Shotton—I hope I have remembered all of them—that deserve recognition and investment.
I could not disagree more, however, that this Government have treated the Welsh steel industry unfairly, or not in an equitable way, compared with the steel industry elsewhere in the UK. The steel industry in Wales is the only part of the industry that has a ringfenced fund—£500 million for Port Talbot. The hon. Lady said that that has been spent with no benefit to the local community, but I frankly cannot agree with that. That £500 million has enabled Port Talbot to invest an additional £500 million in a transformation of that steelworks that will secure steel production at that site and the future of the south Wales steel industry for decades to come. It is a significant investment in the local community.
I know that the hon. Lady, like me, would have preferred for that transition in south Wales to have happened without the hard stop between the closure of the blast furnaces and the restart of the electric arc furnace, and I support Tata Steel’s view on the installation of its electric arc furnace. However, the decision to close was taken before the general election, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds)—the former Secretary of State, who is now Chief Whip—was able to intervene at that point and get a much better deal for the workers at Port Talbot and the community there than the previous Government did. I share the hon. Lady’s frustration and concern, but we need to be clear about where the indifference to the blast furnace closures in Port Talbot was. It was not with this Government; it was with the then Conservative Government.