BRITAIN will be keeping a watchful eye on the US to make sure it does not reintroduce tariffs on steel imports "through the back door", Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt said.

US President George W Bush announced the end of 21 months of sanctions last week amid threats of retaliation from the European Union and a World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling that they were illegal.

A monitoring programme would be introduced to guard against a "flood of imports", Washington said.

Shadow trade secretary James Arbuthnot welcomed the climbdown, but asked: "What steps are you personally taking to ensure that with its proposed licensing system, the United States does not introduce steel tariffs by the back door?"

Ms Hewitt replied: "We have looked very closely at the small print of the United States' announcement on steel tariffs.

"I do not believe that they intend to introduce new tariffs or new import barriers through the back door, but we are looking very closely indeed at what they mean by monitoring imports in order to ensure that what we have now succeeded in defeating, through our partnership with Europe and our work in the WTO, will not indeed re-emerge.

"I will continue to work extremely closely with our steel industry on this issue, but at this point we have no evidence whatsoever that Washington might do what you fear."

Ashok Kumar, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, asked what help the Government could give steelmaker Corus and the rest of the British industry to deal with the multi-million pound cost of lost exports.

Ms Hewitt told him: "We have been working very closely with Corus and with the trade union and its members in order to help both Corus and the wider industry."