LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
This is an issue raised by the Unite union in defending the UK steel industry from foreign imports.
It seems HS2 does not have a specific "buy British" policy, so there are no agreements in place to use British steel.
There is also a backdrop of British uncompetitiveness in the light of differing trade agreements, which appear to penalise the UK since we left the EU.
HS2 must use overall a huge amount of steel, but I imagine most of it will be used in stations and track/OHLE, towards the back end of the construction.
Tunnelling and route construction doesn't seem to be a steel-rich phase of the project, and the track/OHLE contracts are not even let yet.
The steel industry is global, with the major players operating in many markets.
It is also specialised, and rail is typically one of the specialised markets.
In the UK, most steel for rail applications comes from Scunthorpe.
This plant was owned by Tata Steel, who sold the long products division to Greybull Capital in 2015 and was renamed British Steel.
British Steel became insolvent and after government support was acquired by the Chinese Jingye group in 2020 (surely an irony for a firm called British Steel).
Tata also owned the Hayange steel mill in Lorraine which supplies SNCF (and is now owned by the UK's Liberty Steel).
As a result, Scunthorpe supplied steel to Hayange with rail for SNCF's recent LGV construction projects (eg Tours-Bordeaux, Le Mans-Brittany).
I don't remember anyone objecting to British steel being used to build French railway lines.
HS2 is obliged to build the line on a strictly-controlled budget, and its contractors are multinational consortia.
Logistics dictate that most of the supply chain (eg tunnel/route/station construction) is British-based anyway.
Steel is one of those areas that does not have to be UK-sourced.
(Rolling stock is another: I can't imagine much of the aluminium for the recent trains order will come from Britain).
So should HS2 be directed to buy British steel?
In my view if you enforce protection and exclude foreign (particularly EU) content, tit for tat will rule and potential exports will be lost (not just in steel).
There's also the view that guaranteed orders will reduce competitiveness and cost control (ie HS2 will end up paying more for its steel).
I know NR buys the vast bulk of its needs from Scunthorpe, but some specialist steel does come from places like Austria.
I understand where Unite is coming from, concerned about its members at Scunthorpe, but the UK is not a protectionist economy.
What is more, leaving the EU does not automatically allow the UK to exclude foreign bids in commercial contracts, as we still have WTO obligations.
Thoughts?
Unite demands clear targets for use of UK steel in HS2 project | HS2 | The Guardian
It seems HS2 does not have a specific "buy British" policy, so there are no agreements in place to use British steel.
There is also a backdrop of British uncompetitiveness in the light of differing trade agreements, which appear to penalise the UK since we left the EU.
HS2 must use overall a huge amount of steel, but I imagine most of it will be used in stations and track/OHLE, towards the back end of the construction.
Tunnelling and route construction doesn't seem to be a steel-rich phase of the project, and the track/OHLE contracts are not even let yet.
The steel industry is global, with the major players operating in many markets.
It is also specialised, and rail is typically one of the specialised markets.
In the UK, most steel for rail applications comes from Scunthorpe.
This plant was owned by Tata Steel, who sold the long products division to Greybull Capital in 2015 and was renamed British Steel.
British Steel became insolvent and after government support was acquired by the Chinese Jingye group in 2020 (surely an irony for a firm called British Steel).
Tata also owned the Hayange steel mill in Lorraine which supplies SNCF (and is now owned by the UK's Liberty Steel).
As a result, Scunthorpe supplied steel to Hayange with rail for SNCF's recent LGV construction projects (eg Tours-Bordeaux, Le Mans-Brittany).
I don't remember anyone objecting to British steel being used to build French railway lines.
HS2 is obliged to build the line on a strictly-controlled budget, and its contractors are multinational consortia.
Logistics dictate that most of the supply chain (eg tunnel/route/station construction) is British-based anyway.
Steel is one of those areas that does not have to be UK-sourced.
(Rolling stock is another: I can't imagine much of the aluminium for the recent trains order will come from Britain).
So should HS2 be directed to buy British steel?
In my view if you enforce protection and exclude foreign (particularly EU) content, tit for tat will rule and potential exports will be lost (not just in steel).
There's also the view that guaranteed orders will reduce competitiveness and cost control (ie HS2 will end up paying more for its steel).
I know NR buys the vast bulk of its needs from Scunthorpe, but some specialist steel does come from places like Austria.
I understand where Unite is coming from, concerned about its members at Scunthorpe, but the UK is not a protectionist economy.
What is more, leaving the EU does not automatically allow the UK to exclude foreign bids in commercial contracts, as we still have WTO obligations.
Thoughts?
Unite demands clear targets for use of UK steel in HS2 project | HS2 | The Guardian
The Unite union is demanding the government sets clear targets for the use of UK-produced steel in the HS2 rail project, after it emerged that the Department for Transport currently has none in place.
Responding to two written questions in parliament posted by Labour MPs in December, the transport minister Andrew Stephenson admitted there is “no formal target” for the use of UK steel in its construction.