Speeches by Bryant.

“I was not sure whether I was allowed to say it; I do sometimes check. It is the National Security Committee, which is chaired by the Prime Minister. If there is a major, significant issue that needs to be addressed, then that is where that would go. For instance, there was an adjudication last week by the Chancellor of…”

“I will come to that. There are two different elements here. First of all is the question that may be the most effective means of bringing about a change, which is to introduce due diligence requirements on company directors, who could potentially be civilly liable, so that they would have to make sure that, within thei…”

“The Prime Minister obviously sits at the top of the tree. I am not sure it is a great analogy really, because the lead on the trading relationship lies with us. Now as it happens, one of the things we try to do in DBT is to make sure that there are not too many interlocutors on behalf of the UK with other countries. I …”

“A submission would probably come up to Ministers in my Department. Kate and I would probably have discussed it beforehand. We would have a little bit of a discussion with Lewis as well about how all of that would go down. We would have to bear in mind how that relates to other parts of our industrial strategy and wheth…”

“One of the things we are doing that happens tomorrow is the new steel trade measures that we are introducing, because we recognise that, if we are going to make sure that we have more of a level playing field for British steel production, then we have to have quotas and tariffs in place to do precisely that. On the who…”

“That is not fair, actually. The United States of America has said to us that we are not, because of our Modern Slavery Act. We have taken more action than some other countries have. I note that Australia told me recently that it is about to introduce a version of our Modern Slavery Act. We know that we need to upgrade …”

“We argue regularly that DBT should always be at the table, but yes.”

“With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement on our steel trade measure, which will come into force on Wednesday 1 July. Let me start with first principles. The UK needs a strong steel sector, both in production and downstream, but the whole sector is facing an existential moment. Fifty years …”

“The hon. Member makes a good point. This is why we have a steel strategy as well as the steel trade measure, which is only part of the steel strategy. The Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), was in the Chamber answering an urgent question on so…”

“My officials and I have spoken a great deal to the kind of businesses that my hon. Friend is talking about—not all of them, but a large number of them—and have tried to explain that we are trying to tackle only those categories of steel that can be and are being produced in the UK. Those are the ones that we are trying…”

“The last question is a clever one—that is a matter for the Chancellor, however. On fabricated steel, the right hon. Member makes a good point, which I know several people made in the urgent question last week, or whenever it was—I was in Türkiye trying to negotiate a free trade agreement with it and, in fact, talking a…”

“I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s comments, and I know that he has raised some of those issues with the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North. It is probably best that we go through the granular detail of the particular company’s concer…”

“If I had a bit of advice to my hon. Friend—I know he is relatively new to the House—I would not have favourites in one’s own constituency because then the other people who are not your favourites end up being very irritated with you. I have 14 rugby clubs and have to be very careful. He makes a good point. Just to deal…”

“I think I am going to have to resign, because I agree with every single word of what the hon. Gentleman just said.”

“I have never known a policy area that so depends on the granular detail of individual companies and individual codes and categories of different steel. I talked to people from one business who were very concerned at the beginning of our conversation, because they thought that all their steel imports would be in scope a…”

“I am afraid that the hon. Member will have to come along on Monday afternoon—I do not want to give him a false or inaccurate answer now—or if he wants to grab me afterwards with officials, I will try to give him the precise answer. I just want to make it absolutely clear because some people have gained the impression t…”

“That is a fair point. We have tried to do two things. In key areas, we want to ensure that people can maintain historical trade flows, so we need to monitor how those trade flows are progressing. We can do that with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on a regular basis. If there is a sudden spike, we may need to address…”

“Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the correction. I am terribly sorry; I was only referring to the latter letter. We have had a lot of letters on this, and I appreciate that lots of Members have written to Ministers about it. We tried to respond as quickly as we could, once we had …”

“I have pages and pages on the Windsor framework in relation to this somewhere, but I have only two words on it here. Apart from anything else, part of our negotiations with the European Union had to be about how we ensure proper provision for Northern Ireland. When the EU announces its measures on Monday, I hope that t…”

“The right hon. Member says from a sedentary position that nothing will change. I am just trying to moderate his expectations of change, but obviously, if there is a very significant, exceptional moment then we may need to act. The kind of thing I am talking about is speciality steel, for instance. When we started this …”