UK Steel - Defence Industrial Strategy Procurement Submission

January 2025

UK Steel and our members welcome the opportunity to provide a submission to the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS). The Ministry of Defence is, and could be more so, a critical partner in increasing the utilisation of UK-made steel in public projects, both for construction and defence grades. We have been actively engaging with the MOD on this issue for a number of months, publishing a defence position paper in May 2024 and submitting it to the ongoing Strategic Defence Review in August 2024. Procurement is also a major policy issue under discussion at the Steel Council, and we expect cross-government recommendations to be embedded in the forthcoming Steel Strategy. Our industry can make a significant contribution to supply chain resilience, bringing the procurement of key materials closer to home and reducing our dependence on foreign companies in an increasingly competitive and protectionist world by better support and utilisation of our domestic steel industry.