Speeches by Jones.

“The hon. Gentleman makes a really good point: we are spending public money, and we need to be incredibly careful in the way we do that. Of course, what we spend will be accounted for in the Department for Business and Trade annual accounts, as the insolvency costs were when we were in this position in 2019. We will upd…”

“I thank the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee for his important question. He makes the point that we need steel for green energy—wind turbines, carbon capture and so on—and our energy security. There is an important wider point, which is that since the election, £43.7 billion has been committed by the…”

“I agree with my hon. Friend’s comments about the tireless work of our hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe on securing the future of British Steel. The Secretary of State went to the British Steel site in Scunthorpe just after the legislation was passed. I think it is fair to say that there was great relief after our …”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his continued support for his community. Yes, I am very happy to meet the leader of North Lincolnshire council, as I have done previously; he is an incredibly important part of the jigsaw of what happens in the area. I am always happy to meet MPs—I meet my hon. Friend the Member for Scunt…”

“My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of Tata investing in those assets and the future of the Port Talbot site, which is incredibly important. Of course, we meet regularly to talk about that. We have the transition board, which the Secretary of State for Wales convenes, along with the Welsh Government. We are work…”

“I thank the Lib Dem spokesperson for his support for our interventions and for his helpful questions. We will publish an impact assessment in due course, including classification considerations. He is right to point out that we did not answer his questions last time, and neither am I answering them this time, but I wil…”

“My right hon. Friend is of course right: the steel strategy is all the more important now than when we devised it in opposition and committed £2.5 billion for the steel strategy fund in our manifesto. We are looking at how we use that financial support, and, as he knows, at how we might do primary production. We are in…”

“It is getting harder and harder to understand quite what the Opposition’s policy is on steel. It is all over the place. On the one hand, they ask us questions about costs. They say they had negotiated a modernisation plan with British Steel, but they will not tell us how much money they were willing to throw at that pl…”

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the steps the Government have taken since the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025 came into force. The Government took the decision to recall Parliament on 12 April so that we could take swift, significant action on British Steel. As hon. Membe…”

“The hon. Gentleman says that is not true, but he needs to provide evidence of that, because that is what British Steel has told us, and it does not have coking ovens because they were closed under the previous Government.”

“I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the situation at Whitehaven. As I have already said, British Streel told us directly that it could not use that coal because of the sulphur content and working coke ovens are needed to—”

“We deeply regret the choices that INEOS has made. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Grangemouth does not provide the only refining capacity in the UK, but he is right to say it is the only provision in Scotland, which is why we intervened with a package of support and a £200 million commitment from the national wealth fund …”

“My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The supply chain of these big steel production companies, whether Tata, British Steel or others, is really important. I do not have an answer for him now, but I will look into the issue he raises about Rotary Engineering and ensure the right thing is being done.”

“As the Secretary of State made clear during the debate of Saturday before last, the capacity for primary steelmaking production is important, and the steel strategy will look at exactly how we deliver that. There are new ways of delivering primary steel—using hydrogen, for example—that other European countries are now …”

“My hon. Friend is right to say that we produce only about 30% of the steel we use in this country, and we must be much more ambitious about increasing that figure. He is also right to raise questions about carbon leakage and safeguards. The CBAM is being introduced in 2027. We are working through what happens in the in…”

“I need to be clear on this point, because I know that there has been lots of speculation. We are not aware of any deliberate acts of sabotage. There was an issue with people coming on site who did not gain access. No Jingye officials are on site at the moment. We are talking to Jingye in a respectful way about what hap…”

“My hon. Friend is quite right to raise ceramics and their importance in blast furnaces. We have all become steel experts through the many podcasts that everybody has been listening to over recent weeks. One of the issues with shutting down blast furnaces immediately without proper provision is not just that the metal h…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his work and for the support that he has provided to me, officials and others because of his expertise in this space. He is right to thank staff; they have worked unbelievably hard, and I am very grateful for what they have done. He is also right to talk about how we ensure that the product m…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words of appreciation. The construction sector is incredibly important when it comes to steel. We are looking at every measure we can take to ensure that people can buy British steel in a way that is competitive and useful for them. We are looking at procurement and at other measures …”

“I thank the hon. Lady for promoting me to Secretary of State—I am actually just a junior Minister. She is right to raise the issue of Port Talbot. The transition board has papers that we can send her, which set out exactly how many people have gone through training processes. The number of people who have taken compuls…”