Fri, 11 Apr 2025

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 Government aims to take control of British Steel

Parliament will be recalled for a rare Saturday sitting in a bid to save the company's owner from closing the site.

* Parliament will sit on a Saturday for the first time in nearly three years to pass emergency legislation to save British Steel's Scunthorpe plant from closure
* The law would allow ministers to "take control" of the site and stop its Chinese owner, Jingye, from closing its blast furnaces
* Talks have been taking place this week to keep production going at the firm, after owners Jingye said its blast furnaces were no longer financially sustainable
* The government has offered £500m of support to partly fund a switch from blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces, but the offer has been rejected by the company
* The emergency legislation would give ministers powers to order raw materials and direct the company's board and workforce
* The company announced plans last month to shed jobs at the Scunthorpe site, which employs 2,700 people, blaming "highly challenging" market conditions, tariffs, and costs associated with lower-carbon production techniques
* Unions representing employees at the site have welcomed the government's move as a "reprieve" while a longer-term solution is worked out
* The GMB union has said that nationalisation is the only way to save the UK steel industry, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the government of having "bungled" the negotiations with British Steel.
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