ON MONDAY the whole House sat as a Committee to scrutinise the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill – a procedure reserved for legislation of the greatest constitutional significance. What Parliament is being asked to decide here is not merely whether to protect British steel, but how much power it is prepared to hand to the Government in doing so. When Parliament was recalled last April, there was broad agreement that action was needed to protect Britain’s virgin steel production. I voted for that emergency legislation. But I also raised concerns at the time that the powers being sought were sweeping, including the ability to seize assets, enter premises by force and impose criminal penalties. Parliament acted in good faith, yet the timetable allowed little room for proper scrutiny.
Parliamentary scrutiny is not an obstacle to good government; it is what separates targeted, proportionate legislation from an unchecked executive. When ministers ask Parliament to grant them broad powers quickly, it is important that Parliamentarians, as legislators, ensure those powers are properly defined. The Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill, as drafted, is not.
Take the definition of a ‘steel undertaking’. Any business with even incidental iron or steel activity could fall within scope. Proposals to require steel to be a predominant feature of any business caught by the Bill would have been a straightforward fix and a sensible move for ministers to have accepted.
The Bill allows nationalisation wherever the Secretary of State considers it in the ‘public interest’ – a phrase the Bill barely constrains. One example permits action to support the economy of ‘any part of the United Kingdom’. On that reading, the closure of a single facility could be sufficient justification. The uncertainty this creates will deter industrial investment long before any minister reaches for these powers.
The three examples given are not even exhaustive. The Secretary of State may invoke any definition of the public interest he chooses. That is not a targeted emergency power, but a blank cheque. The Bill’s sunset clause, meanwhile, can be extended indefinitely by secondary legislation alone. A sunset that resets without primary legislative consent is no sunset at all.
The Government is right that this Bill reflects the approach taken in the Banking Act 2009. But that Act came with important qualifications that this Bill lacks, for example, transfers were limited to temporary public ownership, the Treasury was required to consult before acting, and the powers applied only where an institution was already in financial difficulty. Those safeguards mattered and their absence here should concern us. Voting for emergency legislation is not a blank cheque for whatever follows. Getting these things right is the difference between targeted intervention and handing the Government powers with no meaningful limit.
