Mr President, in Scotland we know about brutal steps. In 1983 the Scottish steel industry produced 34,400 tonnes of steel a week. By 1993, ten years later, it was producing 700 tonnes a week. Really, it was brutal. It caused economic devastation and despair. I was once a steel MP in my other life in the House of Commons, and it is a heartbreak. So the UK complied with the strictures, which are now being abandoned, and they did so by closing Ravenscraig and Clydesdale. Our production fell by 98% over ten years, whereas UK production increased by 26%. I really would like to know if there is any other part of the European Union which has experienced this kind of devastation. I would be surprised if there is.

In 1993 the Council of Industry Ministers agreed to protect the single-plant steel-producing countries. The UK Government, of course, closed Ravenscraig. It was profitable, it had a magnificent work record, and it was right on the doorstep of the biggest steel market in Europe, namely the North Sea. But we had to close. Scotland has no steel industry. If we had been a normal country at the top table, we would still have Ravenscraig.

A curious thing happened in all this, and I think the Commissioner might be interested in this. We had a meeting with Sir Leon Brittan following evidence given by the head of British Steel, who said to the Select Committee of the House of Commons: if we do not close Ravenscraig, the Commission will jump up and down. That was evidence given on oath by the head of British Steel. Could Sir Leon Brittan explain what this meant? There seems to have been some kind of plan in concert with the Commission to close Ravenscraig. I was appalled by that statement, may I say, and I am the mother of this House in the sense that I am the longest serving Member. I have never heard a more incomprehensible statement than that from a Commissioner in my life. If the Commission is a college and wants the respect normally paid to a college, it should not just read a brief: it should master the brief. We do not know where we are with that statement, and some of us are very critical of the Commission.