It is accompanied by a Steel Crisis; it will be followed by a food crisis; and finally, by a dollar crisis, which will be the most serious crisis of all.

Therefore the Crisis in Steel is the biggest threat to the employment and prosperity of people in Wales.

The Committee expressed its fear that there would be fudging, followed by a renewed Steel Crisis "in a yet more virulent form".

When the hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) accused the Government of a desire to shovel off the blame on to international factors, he totally failed to understand the world conspectus in which the right hon. Member for Sidcup had set the whole of the Steel Crisis.

I support much of what was said by the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes), who highlighted the impact of the continuing Steel Crisis on the Welsh economy.

Do we not know it in South Wales, with the Steel Crisis and so on?

The least for which we can hope is that a portion of the additional bounty coming from Brussels will be devoted to the problems arising from the Steel Crisis in our area.

The Steel Crisis depends in part on the world recession but also on the Government's unreal cash limits and their timetable for breaking even.

Is the Secretary of State aware of the report in today's Financial Times which suggests that the chairman of the British Steel Corporation might recommend the closure of Port Talbot and/or Llanwern because of the Steel Crisis?

At the beginning of 1980, there were those, especially in Germany, who had hoped that an easing of the Steel Crisis might be in sight.

Commission proposals for mitigating the social consequences of the Steel Crisis had been made much earlier, but they were unacceptable to most member States as the work-sharing which they included would have added to the production costs of steel undertakings and harmed the competitveness of the industry while tending to delay the necessary restructuring.

On those estimates, the £48 million which the Government have given to the Steel Crisis areas would produce 1,600 jobs, at a time when we already have 138,000 unemployed - and, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the figure will go substantially higher.

The Government have argued that all those problems are common to Europe as a whole and that there is a Steel Crisis in Europe as a whole.

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is still a Great Steel Crisis the world over.

The United States of America reacted strongly to the Present Steel Crisis.

Is not this new round of discussions on the Steel Crisis an admission that existing EC agreements on capacity reductions, production quotas and prices have broken down?

Given the serious momentum of the Steel Crisis, will the Secretary of State assure the House that he will keep it apprised of the discussions that are continuing in Europe?

These rules are an important element in the attempts being made at European Community level to combat the Steel Crisis and help restore price stability.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a Crisis in Steel throughout the world.

The right hon. Gentleman is deluding himself if he believes that Britain is alone in facing a Crisis in Steel.

That is why we have a Steel Crisis.

It was the decisive way in which the Government tackled the problems associated with the manufacturing and marketing of steel products that enabled the corporation to restructure and to survive during the Biggest Steel Crisis in Europe, which gave rise to the original strategy decisions in 1982 and to the decision in 1985, which is still in place.

in areas affected by the Steel Crisis.

We are in the midst of a Steel Crisis and we are facing bottlenecks, steel shortages and a loss of competitiveness internationally.

Will he tell us exactly what Ministers have done to deal with the Steel Crisis in the six months since the strip mill closure was announced?

I do not accept the Government's line that the Steel Crisis is being whipped up by the media; I know of companies in my constituency whose margins are being hit by up to 30 per cent.

Will the Secretary of State implore the Prime Minister himself to become directly involved with the Steel Crisis?

In those six pages of European Council conclusions, there is not a single mention of whether the Steel Crisis was raised in the discussions.

As for the Steel Crisis, it is not mentioned in the conclusions because this was a European Council meeting to talk almost purely about migration.

Did the Prime Minister not raise the Steel Crisis because he is embarrassed by the fact that his own carbon floor tax makes us less competitive than our EU allies, that he has personally failed to act on Chinese dumping - unlike our EU and Us allies - and that he personally rejected calls to request European globalisation adjustment funds for more than 5,000 directly affected steel workers?

Members on both sides of the House will be concerned about the Steel Crisis.

” The Scottish Government had asked to be part of EU talks on the Steel Crisis, but this Government refused as they continue to abandon their so-called and short-lived respect agenda - an agenda that has been further abandoned by the revelation that the Prime Minister shamefully refused to meet my hon. Friendthe Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows).

The Minister may say that, but my argument is that the basic cause of the Government's slowness to respond to the Steel Crisis is that the Secretary of State fundamentally believes that it is not the business of Government to get involved in markets and industry.

I suppose that it is right to reflect that the Current Steel Crisis is another example of good engagement by the trade unions.

I do not intend to take up too much time, because there are hon. Friends wishing to speak who have had job losses in their constituencies in the last week or so in the Ongoing Steel Crisis.

However, I believe that both Governments starkly contrast with one another in their reaction to the Steel Crisis.

The Steel Crisis rumbles on.

In the light of all that, why has the Government's response to the Steel Crisis been so complacent and ineffective to date?

But it is fascinating to observe that This Steel Crisis is cutting through that fog, and forcing the Tories to understand a very simple truth - that when the market fails, Government should intervene.

Although the Steel Crisis may be partly the result of global trends and events, what cannot be ignored is that the Government have been asleep at the wheel for the past five years.

The catapult is an entirely appropriate response to the Steel Crisis and builds on existing capabilities and expertise.

Since the Steel Crisis made the front pages, we have had a sudden shift from torpor to hyperactivity.

Well, now we know why he has wanted to keep the plan secret, because it proposes cutting more than 4,000 jobs and 40% of the Insolvency Service's staff, who have been working flat out since the Steel Crisis began to unfold.

What I can assure the hon. Lady of is that any job reductions that are, sadly, taking place in BIs or any other Department - there are more Departments involved in this than just BIS, although, of course, we are the lead Department - will not have an impact on our ability to help and to handle the Steel Crisis.

It is clear that the Government have been comfortably behind the curve on the Steel Crisis.

They have clearly been comfortably behind the curve on the Steel Crisis; we have seen poor, defensive reactions, rather than proactive and practical support.

In December we on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee published our report on the Government response to the Steel Crisis.

On Tuesday, the Minister praised the role that the Community union has played in the Steel Crisis, which is absolutely right.

The Government package to help potential buyers of the Tata Steel site in Port Talbot is substantial and befits the tremendous bipartisan endeavours this Government have undertaken to save the industry, and it stands in stark contrast with the distasteful, disrespectful comments of Labour's policy adviser, who said that the Steel Crisis had been “good for Labour”.

One of the main issues in the Current Steel Crisis is time.

At a time when there is a Steel Crisis, BHs has collapsed and other businesses are becoming insolvent, one would think that the Government would want to retain staff with expertise in insolvency, yet 153 jobs are at risk.

The many experienced staff who do not wish to relocate to London will of course leave a gap at BIs at a time when it faces serious challenges wherever we look, such as in the Steel Crisis and the need for significant support for manufacturing, in the delay announced by the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise to the introduction of the pubs code and in setting up the office of small business commissioner.

His leadership was head and shoulders above, and it is deeply concerning to hear in the last 10 minutes that apparently the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and UKIP have voted together to block his reappointment as First Minister, which is quite extraordinary when we need a First Minister in Wales to get back on with addressing crises such as the Steel Crisis.

Will the Prime Minister remind the House when either he or the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills actually went to meet Tata during the Steel Crisis?

I will keep up the pressure on the Government to support a positive outcome to the Steel Crisis.

The Steel Crisis really sums up the Government's approach: it is a problem only when it hits the front pages.

Throughout the Steel Crisis, the Scottish National party consistently called on the UK business sector to bring forward a comprehensive and revised industrial strategy for heavy industry in the UK.

Fast-forward 42 years and we see how right we were; from the Steel Crisis to the Panama papers, from the refugee crisis to taking on the Kremlin, the EU is the key player in all those issues, and that is why it is critical that we vote to remain on23 June.

Government inaction over the Chinese dumping of cheap steel in the UK market, expensive energy costs and a lack of infrastructure helped contribute to the Steel Crisis that made the report necessary.

Investment in such infrastructure holds the potential to secure thousands of jobs, which are more important now than ever before, in the light of the failures in the Government's handling of the Steel Crisis and the subsequent rises in unemployment on Teesside.

Yet the truth is that the root causes of the Steel Crisis should have been dealt with well before the glut.

From the start of the Steel Crisis, the Scottish Government have exhibited tremendous leadership and collective decision making.

Addressing the Crisis in Steel at the expense of pensioners is simply not acceptable.