A rare event will take place in the mother of all parliaments this week when the UK steel industry will take centre stage in the British House of Commons. Or rather, it will share centre stage late in the afternoon with other energy intensive industries. A so-called Opposition Day debate on UK energy and steel industries is scheduled for 4pm on 14 January, UK trade union Community tells Kallanish.

The debate has been called by the opposition Labour party, a member of which, Tom Blenkinsop MP, is chair of the All Party Parliamentary Steel Group. "It's good that Labour will stand up for steel in Parliament next week because the industry is under pressure and yet it is fundamental to many of the UK's strategically important supply chains. Construction, automotive, energy and many other sectors all need a vibrant and sustainable UK steel industry, but it has been struggling to compete because of this government's policies”, Blenkinsop says.

The Labour MP makes no reference to the fact that it was on his party’s watch between 1997 and 2010 that the production side of UK steel industry was effectively sold offshore. This took place with no apparent care or perception by the then New Labour government of the potential risks involved in such a sale. It was fortunate for UK steel that the majority of the production sector ended up in the hands of the Tata group. The Indian company and its UK workforce have pretty much kept the UK steel production sector afloat since 2007, assisted by Spain’s Celsa and latterly, by Thailand’s SSI.

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced compensation measures for UK energy intensive industries in his March 2014 budget. This was to offset carbon taxes and the cost penalty effects of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Although undoubtedly welcomed as a short-term relief measure by UK steelmakers, the move doesn’t improve operating conditions for the UK steel sector, the UK’s Trade Union Congress (TUC) suggests. It simply delays an apparently inevitable slow decline.

In the UK in recent years, indifference to the domestic steel industry has been a regular feature of government, regardless of party politics, Kallanish observes. Community says that the situation is clearly different in mainland Europe where much attention and support is traditionally given to their steel industries by governments in Germany and France.  

Community will be sending representatives from steel sites around the UK to lobby parliament on the day of the debate, it says. Even in a UK election year however, the prospects of any incumbent government taking any new direct action to help repair and revive the domestic steel-producing sector are very remote indeed, Kallanish observes. Osborne’s energy tax assistance will doubtless be paraded as the government’s key strategy to help the industry. A pound to a penny says there will be little new support offered beyond that.