22:44 Jessica Morden (Labour)

The impact of the pandemic on our steel industry has consequences not only on a local level but on a national level. UK steel contributes a combined £5.5 billion to the UK economy, and £3.2 billion to mitigating the national trade deficit through exports produced. That is because steel is a foundation industry for many other sectors: engineering, construction, transport and renewable energy, to name just a few. Steel forms the backbone of our manufacturing sector, and the industry stands ready to supply the world-class steel that will help us to build back better. This is the key message of the “Britain, we need our steel” campaign, which has been launched by the Community, Unite and GMB trade unions, to which I pay tribute for the work that they do to stand up for our steel industry in this country. I hope that all hon. Members here tonight will be actively supporting this campaign.

It is also vital that the Government recognise developments such as Liberty’s Greensteel hub in Newport, which uses renewable and low-carbon energy to recycle scrap steel to meet the challenges of decarbonisation and growing consumption of steel globally.

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22:59 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Nadhim Zahawi)

My hon. Friend’s timing is impeccable, because I am just about to come on to our focus on energy and the clean steel fund. As we set out our focus on the recovery, our objective is both to boost the sector’s short-term competitiveness and to support the longer-term transformational investment that colleagues have spoken about, which will drive productivity and efficiency and support our net zero goals.

On innovation, supporting our steel industry in the UK to decarbonise and make the most of clean growth opportunities is a key priority for us. This is part of our wider agenda to put the UK at the forefront of research and innovation in the coming years. Last year we announced two important new research and innovation programmes, which will help the steel industry in its effort to reduce emissions and support the decarbonisation of the UK economy to achieve our ambitious 2050 net zero target.

To finish my point on innovation, another £250 million —a quarter of a billion pounds—of clean steel fund will support the sector’s transition to new low-carbon technologies and processes. A £100-million low-carbon hydrogen production fund will support the deployment of low-carbon hydrogen in industry to help decarbonise a range of sectors, including steel.

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