I seemed to spend all last week on my feet at various different speaking events, the most fun of which was on Saturday night for the Isle of Axholme Lions 50th anniversary dinner. They do great work locally and it was incredible to hear of their fundraising efforts over this past 50 years.
I did make some reference to the EU referendum in my speech, which is the issue that has defined the past week politically. I will be campaigning for us to leave the European Union so that we can take back control of immigration and our borders. The amount to which we aren’t able to control our own affairs was brought home to me in a debate on the steel industry this week. In it we heard that we had to get permission from the EU to compensate the industry for high energy costs, we had to get approval from the EU to change procurement rules to make it a bit easier to use UK steel in UK Government projects and it is only the EU that is allowed to put import duties on cheap Chinese steel. Even offering relief to the Scunthorpe site on business rates could well fall foul of EU state aid rules.
On the issue of duties on cheap Chinese steel we heard the Minister say that the UK Government position was that they could and should be set at a higher rate than the EU has set, but the UK can’t set the rates ourselves. Now, we can argue as to whether or not UK Governments of all colours would support the steel industry better, but the fact is whilst we remain in the EU, it doesn’t really matter as all of the tools that are there to support the industry were given over the Brussels when we joined the EU! It was at least good to hear the Secretary of State say that the UK Government is prepared to provide financial guarantees to the potential purchasers of the Scunthorpe site to help facilitate the sale. Sadly, the Labour Party and some of their Union funders continue to spread misinformation about just how much is being done to try to secure this industry. Apparently, it’s ok to play politics with peoples’ livelihoods!
In terms of other speeches I took the sleeper train up to Aberdeen Wednesday night (an interesting experience for a chunky bloke of 6ft3!) to speak at a conference on oil and gas. This is in my new role as UK Trade Envoy to Canada. The aim of that role is to grow investment in both directions and it was nice to meet some local companies at the event in Aberdeen.
Other than that, I had some good meetings with one of our local NHS groups, chaired the Isle of Axholme Flood Strategy meeting, held one of my constituency surgeries in Goole, attended an interesting multi-faith service at a local synagogue and spent much of Saturday on the doorsteps in Keadby delivering local newsletters.
