ASW Steel Mill (Hansard, 18 November 2002)

§ Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey)

I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 24, to debate a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely, the closure of the profitable ASW steel mill at Sheerness where 190 were made redundant last week and approximately 150 will be made redundant shortly.

Roger Oldfield acts for the receivers, KPMG. He said at an open meeting in the summer at Sheerness that we would find a buyer but thought that it was unlikely that ASW Cardiff would. Last Monday, he announced the reverse and closed ASW Sheerness.

Three elements about that decision concern me. First, during September 2002, there were four bids on the table: Caparo Industries offered to buy Sheerness. Hopewell Investments offered a similar deal. Ittifaq, a Saudi company, offered to buy Sheerness but the receivers set a condition that it could only sell the product called billets outside the European Union.That was because they had had a better offer from Celsa, a Spain-based steel company. Celsa offered the higher price; it offered to buy ASW Cardiff and some parts of the Sheerness mill.

The receiver's job is to extract the highest price for his list of creditors. No one appears to regulate what he does and though both plants have received Government assistance over the years, it seems that the Government are frozen out of the procedure once a receiver is appointed. That needs to be re-examined.

Secondly, ASW Sheerness is a modern plant with an outstanding management and work force. ASW Sheerness was not closed after the holding company went into receivership in the second week of July but its 382 counterpart in Cardiff was. I am glad that the Office of Fair Trading has accepted an invitation from me to look at the Celsa deal.

Thirdly, during the whole period from July and throughout last week, I was in constant touch with Rhodri Morgan, First Minister of the Welsh Assembly, and a number of Welsh MPs, including my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan), as well as the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation. I know that they were also working with the Welsh Development Agency but here is the anomaly. In the south-east, we have a regional development agency the equivalent of the WDA, but it has little profile; it is called SEEDA. We also have a Government office for the south-east, called GOSE. Not one person from either of those offices was in touch with the ASW management or ASW workers at Sheerness: not one phone call, not one meeting-nothing. It is outrageous. I hope that the SEEDA chairman is carpeted and the chief executive of SEEDA offers his resignation, as they have badly let down my community. They are out of touch and out of sight. The south-east needs its own Minister, so that the management and work force that I represent have the same chances as our fellow citizens in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I hope that you will agree, Mr. Speaker, to the adjournment of business to allow the House to discuss how we can best save ASW Sheerness and ASW Cardiff.