UK not the target of EU steel tariffs, Industry Minister says
The UK is not the target of the European Union’s proposed steel tariffs, the Industry Minister has said, explaining he is “confident that we will end up with a good outcome” for the steel sector.
The European Commission has unveiled plans to impose 50 per cent tariffs on steel, double the current level of 25 per cent, while cutting tariff-free import volumes to 18.3 million tons a year – a 47 per cent reduction.
The Community Union, which represents workers at British Steel in Scunthorpe, described this as an “existential threat” to the industry, with the UK exporting 78 per cent of its steel to the EU.
Industry Minister Chris McDonald told The Yorkshire Post: “I’m really encouraging people to keep a cool head with all of this.
“Clearly the EU is concerned with the dumping of steel into the EU from certain nations around the world.
“The UK is not one of those, we have a free trade agreement with the EU, we have got open and fair trade - so we’ve got to understand exactly what they have in mind and what it means for free-trade partners.”
It comes after former UK chief trade negotiator Sir Crawford Falconer told this paper that the EU tariffs would be illegal under the Brexit Withdrawal Treaty.
Mr McDonald did not deny that this had been raised with European officials, but said “I’m confident we’ll end up with a good outcome for the UK steel industry”.
The Stockton North MP was speaking from the Scunthorpe steelworks yesterday, where he was speaking to management, union representatives and staff members about health and safety.
The visit was on the 50th anniversary of the Queen Victoria blast furnace disaster, which saw 11 people lose their lives.
Mr McDonald said: “We’ve had some discussions about the future of the business as well, and the need for the business to get back to a stable financial level so it can be invested in and have a future.”
He said the Government remained in talks with Jingye, British Steel’s Chinese owners to “come to a fairly clean resolution so that we can take the business forward”.
In the summer, Labour passed legislation to take control of the steelworks and ensure the blast furnaces did not go offline.
“The Government is looking for private sector partners that we can work with on the future investment of the business,” he added.
“I am of the firm belief that there is no reason why a steel company in the UK cannot be as successful and as competitive as a steel company in Europe.
“There is a very strong market in the UK, we’re only supplying 30 per cent of our internal market so there’s a big growth opportunity there.”