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Should HS2 Be Required to use British Steel?

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GrimsbyPacer

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Do you have a any particular reason for specifying England alone, or have you simply forgotten that significant portions of England are further away from HS2 than Wales is?
Because the United Kingdom's structure is biased against England most of the time, any funding in England immediately grants extra money to Wales whilst the reverse is not true. HS2 is the only England only infrastructure project currently going that won't incur a penalty under the Barnett Formula. Might as well get full benefit.
 
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LNW-GW Joint

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Because the United Kingdom's structure is biased against England most of the time, any funding in England immediately grants extra money to Wales whilst the reverse is not true. HS2 is the only England only infrastructure project currently going that won't incur a penalty under the Barnett Formula. Might as well get full benefit.
Welsh/Scottish/NI taxes are being used to build HS2 so they are entitled to benefit from it as much as England.
Wales also is a big part of the UK's steelmaking capacity (though rail comes from Scunthorpe).
Wales has no (or next to no) money of its own - it's UK taxes carved up "equitably" between the national governments.
 

XAM2175

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Because the United Kingdom's structure is biased against England most of the time, any funding in England immediately grants extra money to Wales whilst the reverse is not true. HS2 is the only England only infrastructure project currently going that won't incur a penalty under the Barnett Formula. Might as well get full benefit.

So your original post was disingenuous - noting that you said that "as many materials as possible should be sourced in England to reduce environmental impact on transportation of baulk [sic] cargoes".

In any case, you are wrong:
17. We asked HM Treasury about the differences in its categorisation of rail infrastructure projects, HS2 and Crossrail, whereby funding allocated to railways infrastructure in England does not always result in consequential amounts of funding for all devolved administrations. HM Treasury explained that the distinction followed the comparability factors that are set out in its SFP, where administrative arrangements for ‘heavy’ rail infrastructure vary across the devolved administrations. It told us that as Crossrail is administered by Transport for London it is treated as a ‘local transport scheme’ and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive Barnett consequentials from UK government investment into the project. But HM Treasury categorised HS2 as a ‘national’ project, with the result that Barnett consequentials are payable to Scotland and Northern Ireland but not to Wales.
 

GrimsbyPacer

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Okay, only project that won't incur a Barnett formula to Wales, which was kind of my original point. Still rails in Scunthorpe are the only practical location at the moment.
Wales will keep it's free prescriptions this April, they have state organised rail operation, don't try and make out that the Welsh government is struggling for cash.
Only a small section of HS2 looks to closer to Newport anyway.
PS, baulk meant difficult load not bulky load in my comment, as all cargo transported by rail is clearly in bulk, it's not a spelling mistake.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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Okay, only project that won't incur a Barnett formula to Wales, which was kind of my original point. Still rails in Scunthorpe are the only practical location at the moment.
Wales will keep it's free prescriptions this April, they have state organised rail operation, don't try and make out that the Welsh government is struggling for cash.
Only a small section of HS2 looks to closer to Newport anyway.
Despite what Cardiff says, HS2 is very beneficial to North Wales as it will reduce journey times from Chester and anywhere west thereof.
 

Rand.

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I think Unite should be careful of criticism of other projects. Their own project, a hotel in Birmingham went from £7 million to a whopping £98 million. 1400% over budget. Suspicious? ...... ....... absolutely.
 

XAM2175

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Okay, only project that won't incur a Barnett formula to Wales, which was kind of my original point.
So you are admitting that you're advocating that work be limited to English firms on entirely protectionist grounds and that your comments on environmental benefits were completely meaningless?

Wales will keep it's free prescriptions this April, they have state organised rail operation, don't try and make out that the Welsh government is struggling for cash.
What's this got to do with it?

PS, baulk meant difficult load not bulky load in my comment, as all cargo transported by rail is clearly in bulk, it's not a spelling mistake.
What's the environmental impact of transportation of difficult cargoes, then?
 

WesternS

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If there is a proscription to use UK manufactured steel even though it might be more expensive than imported steel, with checks to see that the supply chain isn't substituting imported steel because it's cheaper, then there has to be a much greater understanding around the whole 'why does a station/bridge/project cost so much - that's dreadful' discussion.

Autarky is generally more costly to consumers, whether private (you and me) or public (tax-payer funded). I sincerely doubt UK-based steel manufacturers (with a total national production of 7m tonnes in 2019) have the same economies of scale as those in China (total steel production of 996m tonnes in 2019) - source: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7317/ .
 

GrimsbyPacer

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So you are admitting that you're advocating that work be limited to English firms on entirely protectionist grounds and that your comments on environmental benefits were completely meaningless?


What's this got to do with it?


What's the environmental impact of transportation of difficult cargoes, then?
1, not entirely, but everything in situations of huge importance needs to be considered, financial, environmental, and logistical, just because there are more reasons doesn't make the other reasons completely meaningless clearly.
2, it's an example from a long list of unfair bonuses for devolved administrations that range to almost everything, the bus pass age is another discrimination.
3, Newport would find it difficult adjusting to manufacturing steel rails quickly, Scunthorpe already does this, so there would have to alterations to the plant and extra movement of wagons to be in place if it were chosen etc.
Scunthorpe is just simplest choice in every way, all nations should prefer their own domestic industry in any field if they can, whether they are in a union such as the UK or EU shouldn't change that fact.
 

XAM2175

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3, Newport would find it difficult adjusting to manufacturing steel rails quickly, Scunthorpe already does this, so there would have to alterations to the plant and extra movement of wagons to be in place if it were chosen etc.
If Scunthorpe is best positioned to do the work then that's perfectly fine.

2, it's an example from a long list of unfair bonuses for devolved administrations that range to almost everything, the bus pass age is another discrimination.
Sounds like a problem for English voters.
 

tspaul26

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Sounds like a problem for English voters.
Indeed, and fails to mention (for example) that income tax is for many people higher in Scotland than in England. That used to affect me before my tax domicile changed to England.

To return to the topic, HS2 should source the best value steel and this is not just limited to the cash price.

There is a potential argument to restrict Chinese supplies due to the flagrant dumping that has been occurring for many years now, but no more than that I think in terms of such protectionism.
 

MotCO

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There is a potential argument to restrict Chinese supplies due to the flagrant dumping that has been occurring for many years now, but no more than that I think in terms of such protectionism.
Not just dumping, but whether we should be seen to support questionable labour conditions.

There was also an earlier comment about recognising that we should not restrict imports since the affected exporting countries could restrict our exports. However, in the case of China, there is a huge trade imbalance so it wouldn't make that much difference to the UK
 

MattRat

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British steel will provide British jobs, which surely isn't a bad thing, especially as part of the Government's 'build back better' program.
 

Sheridan

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Would you care to elaborate?
How do shorter journey times not help North Wales?
As with all these things, they help people from north wales who wish to travel to or from London. They don’t help people who want to travel from north wales to north wales.

Edit: to expand a bit further, if improvements were made between Holyhead and Crewe, these would benefit those making journeys along the north wales coast and those making journeys beyond. The current plans only benefit those making journeys beyond Crewe.
 

Nicholas Lewis

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And profits for it's Chinese owners.
They will pay tax in Britain on those profits and those workers will pay tax and NI.

Steel Making is a core competence that we need to retain our stupidity, and much of the West, in outsourcing semiconductor production has been laid bare over the last 18mths. Might be cheaper but as a result our value add productive capacity has been badly impaired so we've lost more overall.
 

MattRat

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I'm sure they won't. Just pointing out that it's not as simple as "British good, Chinese bad".
I never said anything about China, unless you are inferring that the mere thought of Britain means I think the Chinese are bad?
 

najaB

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I never said anything about China, unless you are inferring that the mere thought of Britain means I think the Chinese are bad?
Apologies, while I quoted your post I was speaking in general about the idea that some people have that British is automatically best.
 

MattRat

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Apologies, while I quoted your post I was speaking in general about the idea that some people have that British is automatically best.
Well ideally you'd want them to strive to be the best, but ultimately surely the important thing should be for a country to be mostly self sufficient, as in we build our own things to contribute to our own economy instead of importing everything.
 

JamesT

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Well ideally you'd want them to strive to be the best, but ultimately surely the important thing should be for a country to be mostly self sufficient, as in we build our own things to contribute to our own economy instead of importing everything.
If everyone is trying to be self-sufficient then we lose the benefits of international trade. We are in general as a country better off because we don’t try to produce everything. We buy goods and services cheaper than we could produce them ourselves and in return other countries buy ours where we are better at producing them.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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As with all these things, they help people from north wales who wish to travel to or from London. They don’t help people who want to travel from north wales to north wales.
Edit: to expand a bit further, if improvements were made between Holyhead and Crewe, these would benefit those making journeys along the north wales coast and those making journeys beyond. The current plans only benefit those making journeys beyond Crewe.
I'm sure you know that the UK Connectivity Report recommended those sorts of upgrades, and the local authorities both sides of the border want to see improvements.
But there's no sign yet that any of it will happen.
All we've got so far is the shorter HS2 journey time to London, at the expense of a change at Crewe.
 

MotCO

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If everyone is trying to be self-sufficient then we lose the benefits of international trade. We are in general as a country better off because we don’t try to produce everything. We buy goods and services cheaper than we could produce them ourselves and in return other countries buy ours where we are better at producing them.
I know what you saying, and agree with most of it. However, it comes unstuck when what you think are reliable trading relations turn sour - I'm looking at French electricity, Russian gas etc. Even though contracts or agreements are in place, if the supplying country has a shortage of its own, it will obviously look after themselves first and foremost.
 

MattRat

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If everyone is trying to be self-sufficient then we lose the benefits of international trade. We are in general as a country better off because we don’t try to produce everything. We buy goods and services cheaper than we could produce them ourselves and in return other countries buy ours where we are better at producing them.
But everything imported is a job going elsewhere, and unemployment is a big problem in the UK. And it's not like we export a lot to make up for that, as we will always be undercut by another county who doesn't have minimum wage rights.
 
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