(Update - September 2016)
There is overproduction across the world and the price of some types of steel have almost halved over the past year alone. While the Government cannot fix the price of steel, halt global overproduction or fix currency rates, it is doing all it can to help the industry and workers.
The Government has already paid steelmakers £76 million in compensation for energy costs, led the charge within Europe to protect the industry from unfairly cheap imports and has changed public procurement rules to help steel suppliers compete with international suppliers for major projects. It would now be almost impossible not to buy British steel through public procurement and I am pleased that Crossrail, Europe's biggest construction project, will use 7,000 tonnes of almost exclusively British steel.
I also welcome that the Government will be exempting eligible Energy Intensive Industries, including steel makers, from the indirect costs of the Renewables Obligation and Small Feed-in-Tariffs. This will enable steelmakers to keep their bills down, keep them competitive, keep them here and also give certainty for future investment decisions.
While the UK negotiates its exit from the European Union, it will remain a Member and will continue to exercise the rights and obligations that come with membership. It is therefore important that the steel industry's request for flexibility over Industrial Emissions Directive exemptions has been secured, saving the industry millions of pounds of unnecessary expenditure by offering steel companies more time to comply with this European legislation. Following talks in Europe, the UK also gained encouraging and important commitments to speed up the European Commission's work on unfair trade practices and ensure the effectiveness of State Aid rules.
I am pleased that the Government has demonstrated its commitment to the long term future of the steel industry by establishing a Steel Council, bringing together Government and industry to consider the current and future needs of the industry and how best to meet them. We have a world-leading status in developing new and innovative steel products, but of course there is more to do, and the Government is committed to strengthening the capability and competitiveness of the UK steel industry in years to come.
While there is no straightforward solution to any of the complex issues involved, I can assure you that the Government has been doing, and will continue to do, everything within its power to support steel communities and the industry in the weeks, months and years ahead.