Member

Finally, Amendment 89A is on railway steel. It is not sensible to undercut the UK’s trade policy with the sector-specific exemptions proposed by the amendment. Decisions on tariffs, quotas and trade remedies are more appropriately considered through the mechanisms established by the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018 and related trade processes, rather than this legislation, which is focused on the business of reforming the structure of our railways. In any case, Network Rail already sources over 90% of its steel from British Steel. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Harper, that, in recent months, Network Rail has worked extraordinarily hard to support the continuation of producing steel at Scunthorpe, which is where all standard British steel is produced. GBR will continue with Scunthorpe steel, in accordance with the established framework, as Network Rail does today. In fact, there are some long contracts around, as a consequence of the previous crisis in the steel industry, that make this amendment unnecessary. The small quantity of steel that is not procured from Scunthorpe is specialist steel for relatively small applications, such as some specialist points and crossings as part of the track. It is a relatively small proportion of the total supply of rail.