Should the government further ease steel import tariffs and quotas to protect construction projects?

What looks like a modest win for easing steel tariffs and quotas — 56 votes to 50 — was carried almost entirely by the young, with the under-25s voting yes to a person and support draining away steadily as the register climbs through middle age. By the time you reach the 55-64s, the balance has flipped hard the other way, this bracket the only one to dig in decisively against further easing.

That age gradient reads less as a dispute over construction costs than a split over what kind of economy Britain wants after Brexit and net zero: younger voters prioritising cheap materials and viable building projects, older ones wary of hollowing out domestic industry for the sake of short-term price relief. Gender told a quieter version of the same story, with women narrowly against easing and men essentially split down the middle.

The vote sits squarely on the fault line running through post-Brexit trade policy — sovereignty over supply chains versus the practical costs of protectionism — with the Construction Leadership Council's warnings about housebuilding targets pulling one way and steel-sector nostalgia pulling the other.

Even those who backed easing often did so with a sting in the tail: the floor's top Yes case insisted it should come "only as a precursor to rebuilding our own steel industry after dropping all the suicidal, virtue-signalling net zero nonsense." On the No side, the most-respected voice pointed to the durability of British steel itself, recalling how Chinese steel used on Dundee's Olympia centre "rotted in less than 2 years when British was used stood from 70s to 2000s."

A yes vote, then, but one haunted by the very industry it would import around.