Andrew has provided the following update regarding the steel industry.
Andrew explained on Facebook:
We had great news this evening with the Government confirming that they are going to maintain protections on British Steel to protect us from foreign imports which will undermine our own domestic production.
Conservative Steel MPs have been working intensively on this issue for some time as we tried to fight off the proposals by the Trade Remedies Authority to remove some of these protections. Myself, Holly Mumby-Croft MP and our colleagues have lived and breathed this issue for the past week or so when the most intensive negotiations have been taking place.
We have been supported brilliantly in this fight by the steel industry themselves and victory finally came thanks to the personal intervention of the Prime Minister who met with the 'Conservative Steel Caucus' last week to hear our concerns.
Since then intensive work has taken place between the PM, Ministers, Conservative MPs, British Steel and others to ensure we could get round the complex legal issues involved.
Tonight, Trade Secretary, Liz Truss MP, announced these important protections would be retained and that the Trade Remedies Authority would be reformed to ensure we avoid a repeat.
Throughout this whole time, Labour has done absolutely zilch, instead paying for negative personal attack adverts in constituencies such as Scunthorpe against Conservative MPs who were busy working on the actual issue. Whilst we have been working hand in glove with the industry, the Prime Minister and others to secure our steel industry and stand up for local steelworkers, Labour have been playing childish political games from the sidelines. They have done nothing at all to help. If anything, they have made the job harder.
Special thanks must also go to the Secretary of State for Business, Kwasi Kwarteng MP, who has been more of an advocate for steel during this period than will ever be fully appreciated.
I am proud of the intense behind the scenes work MPs in the Conservative Steel Caucus have done on this, especially this weekend when the situation was particularly perilous.
Credit must go to the PM though who as soon as we saw him last Wednesday on this, immediately 'got it' and moved heaven and earth to ensure we used our Brexit freedoms to protect the UK steel industry, despite the threats from others across the water!
UK Steel (who represent British Steel and others) welcomed this action with the following words -
“The Prime Minister has said that he wants to take back control and today he has done just that and avoided a retreat from investment in our steelmaking, a reduction in the well-paid jobs that are part of the social fabric across the country and hampering any progress for Government of levelling up.
“Today the UK steel sector applauds the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson and Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, for standing up for steel, taking back control and showing that where there is a will, there is a way. This Government has today demonstrated its commitment to the steel sector, by bringing forward emergency measures to ensure free and fair trade is maintained. The Government’s interventions will prevent an anticipated wave of overseas steel flooding our market, that would have cost jobs, investment, and our ability to decarbonise as a sector, threatening the UK’s road to net-zero."
