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Steel Industry

Sir Nicholas, you and I have shared a great interest in manufacturing over many years in the House. As somebody who left school at 15 and served an apprenticeship in the steel industry, I can say that I have steel in my veins. That is why it is sad to be having this debate. It is particularly sad given that the steel industry in this country was probably one of the most productive and competitive in the world. The management and the work force had come together, but some irresponsible financiers around the world have brought the economy of our nation and those of many others to their knees. We are now seeing the consequences of that in the announcement by Corus. I stress—I know that the Minister will take this back to her colleagues in the Government—how important it is that we understand the comment by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) that the steel industry is important to this nation's wealth-creating base. Governments now face a range of challenges, but that is particularly true of those who allowed their economies to develop into service economies, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) said. We now need to reposition our economies and move them back a little in the direction of wealth creation and manufacturing, and steel is very important in that equation. The steps that the Government have taken to stimulate the demand side of the economy are laudable and will probably mitigate the worst effects that we might have seen, as will the action taken by our Prime Minister at the G20 and the action that he will take at the G8 later this week. However, the importance of the steel industry is sometimes not understood in Whitehall. Had it not been for the steel industry, the RB211, which is probably one of the greatest aerospace engines the world, would never have got into the skies. Had it not been for the steel industry in Sheffield, Concorde would never have flown. Had it not been for the steel industry in Sheffield and the surrounding area, including Rotherham—I take a little exception to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said about the cover at Wimbledon, because I do not think that all the steel was made in Rotherham, but we will debate that later—we would never have been able to extract oil from the North sea. The North sea is the most difficult terrain in which to extract oil, but we did it because of the brilliance of the engineers and the steel manufacturers in South Yorkshire. We are now entering a nuclear renaissance and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe said, we are moving into the green energy sector and green energy industries, which will involve not just hundreds of millions, but billions of pounds. We need to get into the supply chain as we have in the past. The British steel industry is at the start of the supply chain. Detailed discussions are taking place with companies such as Forgemasters about investing in 15,000-tonne forging presses, which are among the largest in the world. If those discussions are successful, they will give the country a lead in the nuclear sector, which will be very welcome. I hope that the discussions reach a fruitful conclusion, because that would send a good message that we believe in the steel industry and in British manufacturing and that we will move our economy more toward wealth creation than toward the service sector. That is not to knock the service sector, which is important, but it is also important to get the balance right. The skills base in the steel sector, which is probably one of the most productive and competitive in the world, must be supported in the current situation, which is not of the sector's making. This is not the '80s or the '70s, when we were unproductive. We are talking about some of the most productive work forces in the world. In a few years' time, if we are not careful, we will be saying, "What the hell were we doing? Why didn't we keep this skills base?" You know, Sir Nicholas, that in the early '90s we were arguing about the skills and manufacturing base of this nation. Lord Heseltine, as President of the Board of Trade, said, "Do not disband those work forces—those design engineers and development engineers," but what did we do? We disbanded them, and we are now paying a massive price for that. Let us not do that again. The Government have done a first-class job to date on the demand side. We must make sure that we keep the strategic work forces together and do anything that we can, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe says, to bring those partnerships together to see us through this difficult time. The present difficulties are not of our making.