The aim is to boost homegrown steelmakers’ production to meet half of domestic demand, serving strategically significant sectors such as defense, infrastructure and clean energy. The government set out details of the new quotas on 20 steel products, which take effect on July 1, ahead of the April Easter holiday weekend.
“We were assured that steel products not made in the UK would be excluded from quotas,” Morley told Bryant in the letter dated April 9, calling the government’s moves “reckless” and arguing the new protections “could lead to critical material shortages for some industry sectors.”
“With the utmost respect, I don’t think you will be in office when the long-term impact of this decision is played out and the devastating impact will be felt on steel importers, stockholders and downstream processors and manufacturers,” Morley said. The CBM represents 200 firms that employ about 40,000 people in the U.K.
The new quotas will lead to “much higher costs for UK manufacturers,” he added, with these potentially being passed on to consumers.
As steel importers brace for the new measures, “we have companies saying their customers will now be importing finished goods directly, rather than buying processed or manufactured material in the UK,” Morley warned.
He fears that this “will start to kill off” British firms that import and process steel to supply U.K. manufacturing, leading to job losses. “As lower cost imports are replaced with higher cost steel from UK producers. We are worried that this is not market sustainable,” he wrote.