Steelmakers boosted by change to EU tariffs

British steelmakers will be able to sell more to the EU tariff-free from Friday in a boost for the beleaguered sector.

The EU has agreed to more than double the UK’s tariff-free quota for certain steel products in a move the UK Government described as a “direct win” from Sir Keir Starmer’s deal with the bloc earlier this year.

At May’s UK-EU summit, Sir Keir and European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen agreed to restore Britain’s steel quotas to historic levels after they were slashed in March.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the announcement was “yet another positive step forward for the UK steel sector” that would give producers “certainty”.

The agreement comes at a difficult time for the industry, which continues to face 25% tariffs on exports to the US.

Donald Trump

An agreement with President Donald Trump to effectively reduce those tariffs to zero is yet to come into effect, but Britain has been protected from the 50% tariff Mr Trump imposed on steel from the rest of the world last month.

UK Steel director general Gareth Stace said Friday’s change was “excellent news” for the sector that had been “plagued by problems” in exporting steel to the EU.

He added: “The quota will restore historic trade flows and is good news for both UK steelmakers and their EU customers.”

The decision means the UK can export 27,000 tonnes of “category 17” steel – which includes angles and sections of steel – to the EU each quarter without paying tariffs.

The figure had been cut to 10,000 tonnes after the EU introduced a cap intended to prevent a single exporter dominating the market.

In total, the UK exports around 2.4 million tonnes of steel to the EU, worth nearly £3 billion and accounting for 75% of British steel exports.

Protect jobs

Ministers expect the change to help protect jobs in the industry, which has been a priority for the Labour Government since coming to power.

In April, the Government used an almost unprecedented weekend recall of Parliament to take control of British Steel to prevent the shutdown of its blast furnaces and maintain the UK’s primary steel-making capacity.

British Steel’s interim chief operating officer Lisa Coulson said: “The removal of EU tariffs on British-made steel is a significant boost to our business.

“The EU is an important market to us, particularly for the products our highly skilled colleagues manufacture in Scunthorpe, Teesside, and Skinningrove.”

But Conservative shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith described the quota as “tiny” and “embarrassing from a Government which has nothing to show on removing the US tariffs on steel which the PM claimed to have delivered back in May”.

He added: “It’s a paltry return for giving up 12 years of fishing rights and tying the energy costs of every business to a higher cost EU emissions regime over which the UK will have no say.

“When Labour nationalised British Steel we said they had no plan. This government by press release shows we were right.”