Labour responds to Trade Remedies Authority recommendation to withdraw steel safeguards

Bill Esterson MP, Labour’s Shadow International Trade Minister, responding to the decision by the Trade Remedies Authority recommendation to withdraw half of all trade safeguards on steel, said:

“This is a deeply disappointing - if sadly unsurprising - recommendation from an organisation that is fundamentally flawed in its composition and its remit and has simply not given sufficient weight to the implications of this verdict for steelworkers, their families, and the communities that rely on that industry.

“The Government will say their only option is now to accept this recommendation, but that is simply not true. They must instead accept Labour's offer to work together in the national interest and come forward with emergency legislation, which we will support, to amend the regulations and allow Britain's steel safeguards to be maintained in full.

"That is the only responsible and acceptable course of action to protect the British steel industry and the tens of thousands of jobs it supports.”

Ends

Notes to Editors

• The final recommendation from the Trade Remedies Authority can be found in the link here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tra-publishes-final-recommendation-on-steel-safeguard-measures
• Last week, Emily Thornberry and Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband wrote to International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng offering to work on a cross-party basis to amend the trade remedies legislation to allow a wider range of public interest tests to be applied by the Trade Remedies Authority in making their recommendations.
• That letter can be found in the link here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Trp1mA83GeWj0_py9Oga-EbH_aCv-Sjz/view?usp=sharing