British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the Labour Party is trying to prevent the country's last blast furnaces from being closed. Over the weekend, he hastily called an extraordinary session of parliament with the aim of speeding up a bill that could ensure state control of the threatened production. This is reported by the Swiss newspaper Tagas-Anzeiger.
The background is that the Chinese owner Jingye Group has rejected a government support program of 500 million pounds (approximately 4.4 billion DKK) and instead demands double that. The government has responded with an emergency bill that will transfer control of the plant in Scunthorpe to the Minister for Business. According to the government, a closure would make it impossible to revive production and leave the UK without the capacity to produce primary steel.
- Steel is the backbone of our national strength, says Liam Byrne, chairman of the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee.
There is cross-party support for state intervention, as British steel continues to be used in a number of key sectors such as defence, rail and energy infrastructure such as wind turbine towers.
- Now that the global trade war is escalating, it is really not the right time to give up such a crucial sovereign capacity as steel production, says Liam Byrne.
If no new investor is found, the government will have to consider a full nationalisation of British Steel. The company has previously been nationalised by Labour and then privatised under Conservative governments.
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