Liam Byrne has asked Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds to begin consultation immediately so that the UK's new steel safeguards can be reviewed after six months rather than the planned 12.
The Labour chair of the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee said firms using steel had told MPs that measures intended to protect UK steel production were weakening the industries that depend on it. The central concern is that the safeguards, introduced on 1 July, do not sufficiently distinguish between steel UK producers can supply and specialist products that cannot currently be sourced in Britain.
The committee's letter says quotas have been exhausted rapidly in several categories since 1 October. Businesses in defence, aerospace and construction described being unable to set prices with confidence, difficulty obtaining materials and growing pressure on working capital, with estimates of additional duties ranging from £0.6 million to £10 million from next year.
Byrne: 'Action before investment and skilled work are lost'
Byrne wants a ministerial roundtable within a month and balanced representation for steelmakers, stockholders, fabricators and end users in the review. He has also asked ministers to assess exemptions and quota changes where there is no viable domestic substitute.
The letter calls for an urgent assessment of fabricated steelwork, which is outside the safeguards, and a cross-government look at how the regime interacts with carbon border rules and embodied carbon requirements in procurement. It warns that more than 300,000 people work in downstream steel-using industries.
The committee has asked for a substantive response by 13 November. The test, Byrne wrote, is whether the measures sustain UK steelmaking alongside the manufacturing businesses that depend on it.
