YP Letters: Does British steel industry have a future?

ADMIRAL Lord West has stressed the strategic significance of our steelmaking capacity, warning against losing self-sufficiency in building our future warships. But for those intending to vote in favour of remaining within the EU, this must surely seem anachronistic.

From their perspective, what matters for our defence and for our manufacturing industry is that steel continues to be produced somewhere within the EU.

Whether we in our corner of that union focus on earning a living from selling dodgy financial services and putting on displays of Morris dancing is of no great concern to them.

We should not expect David Cameron’s government or the main opposition parties to see the withdrawal of Tata or the closure of the Port Talbot plant as other than a temporary local difficulty, as they did in the case of Redcar.

From: Ron Firth, Woodgarth Court, Campsall.

WHAT an excellent article by Bill Carmichael (The Yorkshire Post, April 1).

The likely demise of the steel industry, the closure of our last remaining deep coal mines at Kellingley and Hatfield, and the closure of the coal-burning Ferrybridge C Power Station all have their roots in the policies of Ed Miliband as Energy Secretary in the last Labour government.

In fairness to him, the coalition, with Ed Davey at the DECC, continued with this policy and even increased the Carbon Levy way above that of any of our global competitors. His decision to ignore the valid claims of carbon capture schemes locally, aided by only token opposition from Ed Miliband, whose Doncaster constituency was one to suffer most, removed all hope of saving these mines.

Bill’s articles should become daily reading for all party leaders and officials at the DECC.

From: Alan Disberry, Sheffield.

THE Government will be quite happy for the UK steel industry to collapse (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, April 2).

Steel production requires vast amounts of energy, so if the UK’s steel producers close, the Government will be able to keep the lights on next winter.

From: Trevor Walshaw, Millmoor Road, Meltham.

IT is not the EU which allows the big energy firms to hike energy prices to boost their dividends – it is HM Government.

What is more, it is the 
British government which imposes “green” taxes in 
order to subsidise wind 
and solar energy without replacing the increasingly obsolete orthodox and 
nuclear power stations, with the result that the National Grid operates on decreasing safety margins.

From: Peter Cooper, Sandal, Wakefield.

ALTHOUGH I do not always agree with everything that Bill Carmichael says, his piece about the steel industry (The Yorkshire Post, April 1) was very good and hit the root cause of the problem.

The question is does Bill know how we can get our politicians to listen and do something about the problems arising?

As usual, they seem to have their heads in the sand.

Waste of foreign aid

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

WHY can’t our idiotic Government have the strength and wit to tell the overseas aid department to take a running jump? Those in charge of its finances are clearly not fit for purpose, so let’s save salaries and cash by disbanding it.

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington.

THE Chancellor of the Exchequer has got us in another fine mess, not for the first time.

He has failed to spot that £172m has disappeared from his foreign aid piggy bank.

What does George Osborne do each day when he sits at his No 11 desk?

Rock steady Britishness

From: Les Goodens, Hull.

I WISH to take issue with the letter by Sergi Singh (The Yorkshire Post, April 1) regarding comments by the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo.

He describes Mr Picardo as a “foreign” leader which cannot be correct as Gibraltar is a self- governing British Overseas Territory. The Gibraltarians are passionately pro-British, indeed I have a sticker in my car window from the Gibraltar Government’s office in London which reads “Keep Gibraltar British”.

I would, in fact, go on to say that no British Commonwealth countries should be called foreign, otherwise why do we have a British “Foreign and Commonwealth Office”?

Your correspondent should visit Gibraltar if he wants to find out how the Gibraltarians think of their nationality.

Motorway madness

From: Hilary Andrews, Leeds.

ANOTHER nightmare journey to and from Bristol on the motorways – 22 miles of roadworks each way with not much happening and lorries driving really close to each 
other. Why can’t we have a law where lorries must have at least 200m between them to allow vehicles in the next lane to move over in an emergency? This works well in Canada.