'Don't punish British steelmakers for doing the right thing', warns Labour MP

13 September 2023 , 09:37

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Experts fear job losses as the industry moves to less polluting production (Image: PA)

A top Labour MP today blasted Tory failures on steel, warning: “British steelmakers must not be punished for doing the right thing environmentally.”

Experts fear thousands of job losses as the industry switches to less polluting manufacturing. But MP Stephen Kinnock, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Steel, called for posts to be protected as the sector decarbonised.

Mr Kinnock, whose Aberavon constituency includes Britain’s biggest steelworks, Port Talbot, blamed ministers’ “inaction” for the 2015 closure of the Redcar steelworks on Teesside. “We lost not only 1,700 well-paid steelworker jobs and the economic and social heartbeat of that community, but over £4.6billion to the Exchequer in lost tax revenue,” he told the UK Metals Expo at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre. “It was essentially an exercise in ‘levelling-down’. But that inaction may pale in comparison with the cost of doing nothing on decarbonisation, because let’s get one thing straight - steel, like all the other industries represented in this room, is not a sunset industry; it is an industry of the future.”

Labour MP Stephen Kinnock's constituency includes the Port Talbot steelworks (WalesOnline/Rob Browne)

The £2.9bn UK sector directly employs 39,800 workers and supports another 50,000 in supply chains and local communities, according to latest figures from trade body UK Steel. Tata is in negotiations with the Government over £500million of taxpayer-cash to help it switch from coal-fired blast furnaces to greener electric arc furnaces at Port Talbot.

The Indian-owned company would also pump in hundreds of millions of pounds into the site, which employs about 4,000 staff. Industry insiders point to how other countries have helped firms move to less-polluting production - and urge the Tories to support the company.

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Calling for government backing to switch to more environmentally-friendly production, Mr Kinnock added: “Britain’s industrial heartlands led the world in the First Industrial Revolution, and we can lead the world in the Green Industrial Revolution – but only if the Government gets the policy framework right.”

He went on: “The Conservatives love to talk about the dangers of overspending but what they fail miserably to talk enough about is the cost of under-investment – the cost of doing nothing. Nowhere is this more obvious than in our steel industry.” He vowed that a Labour Government would deliver its Green Prosperity Plan, including a £3bn Steel Renewal Fund.

“This will not only be transformational for the steel industry but for wider manufacturing across the UK,” he told experts. “I truly believe that if we come together we can deliver that modern manufacturing renaissance and give our steel industry, and every industry in this room, the future it deserves.”

The Mirror has been campaigning to Save Our Steel since 2015.

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Ben Glaze