MPs offer support and warnings over steel measures

MPs from around the region were among those who spoke in the House of Commons on Saturday during the debate on saving British Steel's Scunthorpe plant from closure.

The steelworks, where 2,700 workers face an uncertain future, have become a bit of a political football.

The speeches were made during a rare Saturday sitting in Parliament to debate the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill.

Reform UK's Richard Tice said he wanted British Steel to be privatised, Conservative MP Victoria Atkins said she was worried about the cost to the taxpayer, and Labour's Melanie Onn said the bill was just a "sticking plaster".

The government said the legislation would allow ministers to "take control" of the Lincolnshire site and stop its Chinese owner from closing the blast furnaces.

Tice, the MP for Boston and Skegness, told the Commons: "Given the secretary of state has inferred that, actually, the owners Jingye are not acting and have not acted in good faith, surely the right thing to do is to seize this great opportunity now, this weekend, and nationalise British Steel."

Sir David Davis, a Conservative former minister and the member for Goole and Pocklington, said MPs were debating a "nationalisation in all but name" bill, adding: "I would have voted for nationalisation. I will vote for this Bill for a simple reason - this buys us time.

"It's a reprieve, not a rescue. I think that's what people have to understand."

Atkins, shadow environment secretary and Conservative MP for Louth and Horncastle, accused the government of recalling Parliament in a panic.

Speaking outside the Commons after the debate, she said the legislation didn't contain the detail needed to "safeguard jobs and to protect the steel industry".

She argued that taxpayers had not been told what the cost would be, and questions remained around what the future liabilities would be.

"What are the prospects of the private sector becoming involved again?" she asked.

Onn, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, warned that the legislation should not be just a temporary solution.

"The measures today are not without risk, and unless we set a course for steel in the UK that closely aligns with our industrial strategy, this will only be another sticking plaster for a site that has already been put through the wringer too many times over the years," she said.

She called for a carbon tariff to be introduced to stop cheaper steel being "dumped" in the UK.

Martin Vickers, the Conservative MP for Brigg and Immingham, accused the government of acting slowly on the issue, and pointed out that he had first raised the issue last year.

"I appreciate that ministers cannot give away their negotiating position, but having made that point as long ago as September, surely the government were beginning to realise that the negotiations with Jingye were going nowhere," he said.

Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh called on the government to "get real" over the energy costs of running the Scunthorpe steelworks, and said the UK was at a disadvantage compared with other steelmaking countries.

The Conservative MP for Gainsborough said: "Steelmaking in this country is under extreme stress. And why is that? Why are we loading the most expensive energy costs on to our own steel production?

"Why is Scunthorpe paying almost twice as much in energy costs as those in South Korea or in America?"

When the bill reached the House of Lords, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Right Reverend Stephen Conway, said: "I encourage the government to remember the pastoral issues alongside the practical measures it is outlining today.

"The two are linked and getting this right will require the government to engage with local partners on the ground... to ensure that we are able to respond together to the impact of what is happening to a resilient but fragile community.

"My prayers are with the many people who will feel uncertainty and anxiety about the present and the future, who will require from us a response that is pastoral as well as practical," he said.

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