Ashok Kumar, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, tells the Parliamentary investigation into Corus' future on Teesdie and of the vital conclusions that is committee has reached.

"THE future of steel-making has been troubling all Teesside - indeed, the whole of the North-East - in the last few months.

And it has been troubling a powerful Parliamentary committee, which took many headline-grabbing hours of evidence from all the key players, and which has just delivered, in the strongest terms imaginable, its unanimous report.

I am a member of that committee - the Trade and Industry Select Committee - and it was at my insistence that it began its inquiry.

Our report, and our 12 recommendations, must now be studied by, and replied to, by Cabinet ministers.

The committee was unanimous in its belief that steel is still absolutely central to a strong UK manufacturing base.

We were alarmed, as were all readers of The Northern Echo, when we first learnt that Corus' plans appeared to envisage massive jobs losses as it concentrated on markets within the UK - markets in which there was no place for the slabs and blooms made on Teesside which, somehow, would have to be sold elsewhere in the world.

That was why the emergency hearings into the Corus plans, involving Corus' top team as witnesses, were called, and it was fascinating to find that, despite the fabled arrogance of the then Corus chairman, Sir Brian Moffatt, his demeanour was very meek and mild.

Indeed, when replying to the one area of contention that touched him personally - that he was profiting from 'fat cat' bonuses at the same time as many thousands of steelworkers were worried about their future job security - he answered simply by saying that these were "strictly private matters". I am not sure how that will play with Teesside's steelmaking communities.

I was pleased that Corus managers were able to share information with us, and by their honesty, and we were also impressed by the pride and trust in the workforce shown by the top brass of the steelworkers' trade union, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, and by the officers of my own union, Amicus.

We were also struck by the patient way in which Trade and Industry Minister Alan Johnson, who - a few days before he was promoted in the Cabinet reshuffle - showed that, despite real constraints placed on government by state aid rules, the Government was prepared to help steel communities affected by job losses and restructuring.

Both the Corus Board, the steel trade unions and Alan Johnson met with hard questioning from ccccccccommittee members, hard questioning reported faithfully by The Northern Echo, and the report of the committee is now in the public arena, with 12 no-nonsense recommendations. Our findings show that Corus will have to work hard to bridge the credibility gap left by Sir Brian's past behaviour and past decisions. The key issue is that Corus' new top team has got to learn that it cannot carry on like old-fashioned Ironmasters.

Corus' leaders have to learn to take their workforce - the company's most valuable asset - into their confidence, and they have to learn that the local communities that their workforce come from have to be in the loop.

We spent a lot of our time probing the rationale of Corus' approach to the future of their Teesside works. Corus views Teesside's future as a supplier of slab steel to European markets and the wider world. We have concluded that Teesside is a vital part of Corus' UK operations and that if the company is prepared to be open and honest with local and regional stakeholders, then Corus' strategy should be supported as realistic.

We have to recognise the grim reality that we live within an environment in which strict rules from Europe forbid direct state aid to steel, but we did feel that there are still ways in which the Government can help Corus to achieve its objectives.

For Teesside, the key recommendation calls on the Government to radically beef-up the powers, functions and responsibilities of the already existing Teesside Steel Task Force so that all our public regeneration agencies - like One NorthEast, the Tees Valley Partnership, the Learning and Skills Council and the Tees Valley local authorities - are pulling together in one united movement and with one voice to overcome the challenge of change.

We recognised that the Government is the key player in bringing forward public capital investment, and that much of this investment - for new schools, hospitals, roads and railways - will need sinews of steel. We have asked the Government to maximise, wherever possible, the tendering opportunities for steelmakers in their public investment programme.

We believe that much Corus land is effectively redundant or under utilised, and we believe that this land, if released, could play a vital role in opening up new industrial land for development, development which itself can aid the steel industry. We felt that English Partnerships, the key development body in England, could be central to this process and could work hand in hand with local authorities, developers and Corus itself.

An immediate recommendation we are putting to Government is the identification of new Enterprise Zones - areas of land given flexibility in planning rules, tax incentives for investors and new grants for development - to kickstart the creation of new businesses and enterprises. I firmly believe that Corus' unused land in the Tees Valley must be top of the list for any new Enterprise Zone.

New business and innovation go hand in hand, and I strongly believe that another of our recommendations - that the Government and Corus should examine how the company can improve its scientific and research and development base - has promise for the Tees Valley. After all, Corus's Technology Centre at Grangetown, once threatened with closure, is still operating, and I firmly believe that with imagination and will, a new Science Park - based on an Enterprise Zone, and serving the metal industries generally - is an exciting and deliverable vision.

We noted Corus' concerns that the Climate Change Levy could impose a burden on the steel industry, which is very energy intensive, and we do think it desirable for the Government to consider revising its approach to this levy in the light of the new EU-wide emissions trading arrangements.

We felt strongly that Corus has not always been a good communicator, either with its workforce or with local communities, and in terms of workforce morale and the need to engage positively in new trade directions, it must improve relations. A co-operative approach based on mutual trust and respect is essential for the future development of the company.

Finally, we all recognised that this work has to be long-term and needs to be handled at the very top level. Our concluding recommendation was that the Department of Trade and Industry had a duty to the UK's steelworkers and to their communities to set up a National Steel Forum, a council which could involve Corus, other steelmakers, their workers and representatives of other stakeholders, and which will formulate plans for the future of steelmaking in the UK.

In some of the strongest words I have seen in any Commons report on manufacturing, it says that this forum "must have sufficient powers to recommend, where needed, the alteration and amendment of Government policy in the interests of keeping a healthy and vibrant steel manufacturing base in existence".

This is, by the standards of a House of Commons committee, a hard-hitting report. It recognises the problems faced by Corus in the international trade climate in which it is operating, and it accepts the direction that Corus is seeking to take Teesside. But crucially, it recognises that Corus has to act, think and talk differently if it wants to gain the confidence of workers and the local comm unities where those workers live.

The Government has to respond to this report, and I have no doubt whatsoever that, following Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt's visit to the Teesside plants, and the knowledge that there is overwhelming public support throughout the North-East to retain steelmaking on Teesside, support amply demonstrated by local and regional media coverage, that its response will be a positive one."