On my way to Scottish Labour conference this weekend I was reminded of what we are all fighting for. I travelled across the Forth Road Bridge. It still remains a source of pride for a former British steelworker, because 90 per cent of the steel in that bridge was produced locally in Scotland. It’s a scandal that the new bridge will not contain an ounce of Scottish steel – it will be coming from China, Poland and Spain.
Now, many people will think that Scotland doesn’t have the capacity to produce the steel for that bridge. And many of you witnessed the demise of heavy industry as Thatcher’s government destroyed our industrial communities. But parts of UK steel survived. And there are still steel plants in Scotland, which are more productive than ever. The Tata Steel plant at Dalzell still has the capacity and the capability to produce at least a third of the steel required for the new bridge. And, what’s more, it’s less than 40 miles away from the construction site. The Chinese steel will have to travel over 12,000 miles. If nothing else, it can’t be the best steel for the environment. And the rest of the steel could have been UK manufactured too – at plants in Scunthorpe and Teesside, which have been providing steel for some of the world’s most iconic bridges for decades.
So, you’d be right to ask: what’s gone wrong? For me, the answer is simple: it’s a failure of political will. Now Alex Salmond and his ministers will say it’s European rules that got in the way. They’ll say they didn’t carry out the procurement, it was done privately. They’ll tell you that ‘no Scottish firms bid’ – even though, at best, they’re being economical with the truth. Tata Steel invested £8m in Dalzell partly in anticipation of at least winning some of the business for the bridge at some stage in the procurement process. So we’ve got an Indian company investing in Scotland and a Scottish Government undermining that investment.
But you won’t hear the Scottish government confess that they failed to ensure the procurement process included community benefit clauses. They won’t admit that cost was their only priority rather than value to Scottish industry and communities. They won’t recognise that Scottish manufacturing is an integral part of upstream and downstream UK supply chains. And they won’t acknowledge the fundamental issue, which is that they have no industrial policy to help level the playing field for Scottish industry to compete globally.
And it’s not as if they haven’t been warned. MSPs like John Park have been challenging the Scottish government over industrial policy for years. I believe there are immense opportunities for Scottish and UK industry to play a significant role in the development of Scottish infrastructure if the right industrial and procurement policy was put in place. Opportunities not least in the renewable energy industry. This could mean more investment and more jobs if the political will is there. As a boy from the Valleys, I’m proud to say that our Labour government in the Welsh assembly are getting things right. And it’s not just Wales that’s taking the right approach. Even the coalition in Westminster, after some major mistakes, seems to be getting its head around how procurement should work. Just this week, reports have appeared that bidders to manufacture the new Crossrail trains will have to demonstrate how their bid will benefit the British economy.
So my message is simple: Alex Salmond – you can’t claim to put Scotland first if you don’t back Scottish business. You don’t need independence to make that happen, you’ve got the power to take action today. And we must support our industry today if we want to secure jobs and investment tomorrow.
Labour’s got it right. The bridge to recovery is through investment in growth and an active industrial policy. And UK and Scottish steel should be part of the bridge to recovery.
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Michael Leahy is general secretary of Community the union
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