Martin Vickers

As Members will be aware, part of the Scunthorpe steelworks site falls within my Brigg and Immingham constituency. As such, hundreds of my constituents work there, and hundreds more are employed in the supply chain. With that in mind, I made it known to my constituents a number of weeks ago that I would support this Bill. It could have been improved, and the Opposition tabled some perfectly sensible amendments, which I supported. However, having got to this stage, I think it is only right that we give our full support to the business and, more importantly, to the workers employed there. I thank the Minister with responsibility for steel. We have had a number of meetings in recent weeks, and he has been extremely helpful. As I said in a previous contribution to this debate, it is not natural for me as a Conservative to support a nationalisation Bill, but the reality is that it is of course a restructuring. The existing position whereby the Chinese own the business and the Government in effect run it is clearly unsustainable, and we cannot allow that to continue, so it is a perfectly sensible move. I was reassured by what the Minister said in yesterday’s debate about the Government looking for private sector involvement, whether that be a wholesale sale or a partnership arrangement. I have met two or three groups that are interested in investing in the sector. Indeed, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin) and I had quite an interesting evening a few weeks ago listening to what was, I think it is fair to say, quite an ambitious plan for steel, so there are organisations and businesses that are prepared to invest. Scunthorpe without steel would not be Scunthorpe. As a resident of Grimsby, I have witnessed what can happen to a town when it loses its core industry—in the case of Grimsby, it was of course the deep-sea fishing industry—and when that happens, it takes about two generations for the local economy to be able to sustain the jobs that are necessary. On that basis, I will certainly be supporting the Bill. The Minister was not quite 100% clear when challenged about the continuation of production in blast furnaces. I know the situation, and I recognise that a long-term move to electric arc furnaces is perhaps the only way to sustain the industry and the jobs in Scunthorpe. So I await developments with interest, but at this stage I welcome the Bill, which is a sensible way forward and has my full support.