The Ministry of Defence has been accused of buying standard steel from China that could be sourced in the United Kingdom, in evidence to the Treasury Committee on 3 June 2026.
The criticism was made at a Treasury Committee evidence session on defence spending and finance, which questioned three experts on how the UK funds its defence capabilities and on the dynamics between the Whitehall departments that sign off defence spending. Giving evidence alongside Lucia Retter, Assistant Director for Defence and Security at RAND Europe, and Max Warner, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, was Andrew Kinniburgh, Director-General of Make UK Defence, which represents just under 1,000 defence companies.
Kinniburgh singled out the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, the body responsible for the defence estate, telling MPs it was still buying steel from China that he said British producers make. “We’re very critical of the MOD, particularly the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, because they are still spot buying pretty, pretty standard steels that we make in the UK,” he said. “They’re spot buying from China, which I find, you know, unacceptable. We should be buying British steel for that.”
He stressed he was not arguing for dumped Chinese steel to be bought up, noting that there are hundreds of types of steel and the UK makes only a relatively small number of them. His objection was to the purchase from China of standard grades that British mills already supply.
The criticism came as Kinniburgh raised concerns about the effect on defence of a 50 per cent tariff on certain steel imports, due to take effect on 1 July. He said the measure was likely to raise the cost of procuring equipment, warning that the volumes exempted from the tariff looked too low for the sector’s needs.
By way of illustration, he said the steel stockholder Barrett Steel bought around 4,000 tonnes of one specialist steel each year, much of it for the defence market, while the entire UK tariff-free allowance for that steel was, as he understood it, 1,000 tonnes.
Asked what Make UK’s position on the tariff was, Kinniburgh said the answer was to negotiate a practical solution rather than to delay or abandon the measure, noting that UK Steel is part of the wider Make UK organisation and that the two were working together on the issue.
What’s the price difference?
The UK needs to build a Finex steelmaking plant (Austrian, S Korean technology). Not net zero, but a lot cleaner than conventional steelmaking. Cheaper too.
But, but bar charts from Ed Militwat won’t allow for such CO2 emissions.
If you make a law that says you have to buy British steel when available then they can charge what they like assuming there’s only one supplier. You could also just change the steel grade very slightly to one that the UK doesn’t make so you can get the better price from abroad.
Really all you can do is some kind of tariff, or subsidise local steel.
My understanding is defence steel usage is minimal compared to construction and car manufacturing though.
Excellent. Steel from China, oil from Russia. A really well thought out defence straegy.
The system does what it is designed to do.