Community Assistant General Secretary Alasdair McDiarmid gave oral evidence to the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee this week as part of the committee’s ongoing inquiry on Industrial Strategy.
Committee Chair Liam Byrne MP began by asking the evidence panel – which also included representatives from Tata, British Steel and the Materials Processing Institute – for their views on the impact of new US steel tariffs.
In his response, Alasdair said:
“We are worried about what this means for jobs and for the sustainability of the industry. These tariffs are a terrible idea, and they are a terrible idea for the US just as much as they are for us. Steelworkers in the UK are angry – they are worried about their livelihoods, and the future of their plant and their communities as well. It is not a situation they would choose to be in.
“We need a decisive approach to trade defence and a robust UK carbon border adjustment mechanism to be brought in swiftly in line with the EU to protect the country against a flood of dirty steel imports.”
The committee moved on to address the ongoing situation at British Steel in Scunthorpe, including the unions’ proposals for securing a long-term future for the business.
On this point, Alasdair said:
“The steel unions’ experts Syndex have been working inside British Steel reviewing the company’s decarbonisation plans alongside British Steel’s experts. There’s a high degree of alignment. The unions agree with the company on the end state in terms of the low-carbon steelmaking technology footprint for Scunthorpe, but we believe that there is a strong case for keeping the blast furnaces going throughout the transition. There is a problem with carbon pricing – there are around £450million of carbon costs that would have to be borne for the 3 years of the transition.
“To bridge the gap between our plan, with the carbon costs involved, and the company’s plan, would cost around £200m. That’s why we’ve presented that to government and we’re asking government to mitigate the carbon impacts of our plan with an additional £200m of support to protect thousands of jobs throughout the transition period.”
Agreeing with Alasdair on the importance of maintaining primary steelmaking capacity, Jon Bolton, Chair of the government’s Steel Council and the Materials Processing Institute, told the committee:
“Managing the transition carefully…managing the next 12 months, if not the next 2 or 3 months, is critical. I would strongly advise you try to influence the decisions around Scunthorpe to keep the two blast furnaces operating. It’s not just about the carbon costs, it’s also about making sure that other assets in the UK – potentially that are not belonging to the two businesses here today (British Steel and Tata) – are utilised more efficiently and effectively to support the business case.”
The Committee Chair closed the session by asking each panellist in attendance to briefly summarise what they wanted to see from the government on an industrial strategy.
In his closing remarks, Alasdair said:
“Speed is what we need. We’ve had consultation after consultation for many years over successive governments, and as I’ve said before, the priorities for the industry now are the same as they were in 2015 when the steel council was first set up following the collapse of SSI.
“So, we need action on procurement, we action on trade, we need action on energy costs, we need support for low-carbon investment, and we need a CBAM. We need all of these things – and we needed them 10 years ago. So we just need to get on with it now before it becomes too late.”
The full transcript of the evidence session will be available to read on the committee’s website from Friday 21st March here.
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