MPs face a choice between “taking back control” of British Steel or seeing the end of primary steelmaking in the UK, the industry minister said ahead of a debate on emergency legislation.
Both the Commons and the Lords will break from Easter recess for a highly unusual Saturday sitting to debate a bill aimed at blocking the company’s Chinese owners, Jingye, from closing blast furnaces at its Scunthorpe plant.
The plans would see taxpayer money used to provide materials to the steelworks and open the door to a transfer of ownership after Keir Starmer warned the future of the firm “hangs in the balance”.
The Commons sitting will begin at 11am and the House of Lords from midday in the first parliamentary recall on a Saturday since 1982, when MPs returned after the start of the Falklands War.
Speaking to Sky News on Saturday morning, industry minister Sarah Jones suggested negotiations with Jingye on saving the plant had broken down, accusing the company of failing to act “in good faith”.
She said: “This problem has now become existential because the company have refused to bring in the raw materials that we need to keep the blast furnaces operating.
“If blast furnaces are closed in an unplanned way, they can never be reopened, the steel just solidifies in those furnaces and nothing can be done.
“So the choice that is facing MPs today is do we want to take back control, to give the Business Secretary the power to act as a company director and to instruct the company to ensure we get the raw materials and we keep the blast furnaces operating, or do we want to see the end of primary steel making in this country and the loss of jobs?”
Saturday’s emergency legislation will also provide for criminal sanctions if executives fail to comply with instructions to keep the blast furnaces open.
Jones (above) said the UK Government would “step in” if British Steel’s owners did not co-operate, with the company “liable for any costs that we incur”.
She added: “We have the £2.5 billion fund for steel which we had in our manifesto, that we will use if necessary, so there will be no extra costs to the Exchequer that we don’t already have in our plans.”
Her comments come after Plaid Cymru reacted with anger at the news of the debate, with leader Rhun ap Iorwerth brandding Labour's move a contradiction between working to save the site in England, but not the steelworks in Port Talbot.
He said: "So the Labour UK government will nationalise this steelworks, having rejected calls by Plaid Cymru to do the same to maintain virgin steel-making and save 1000s of jobs at Port Talbot.
"Wales, and in particular the local communities affected, will never forget Labour’s inaction."
SNP have made similar comments concerning Grangemouth in Scotland, with SNP Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn saying that "if a steel plant in England, rightly or wrongly, merits Westminster taking the extraordinary step of recalling parliament with a view to nationalise it, then why not our key energy asset at Grangemouth?".
Brian Leishman, MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, also said on social media that "hopefully" parliament has been recalled "to nationalise British Steel and take it under government control".
"The same should happen to the Grangemouth oil refinery," he adds. "The government should control essential industries."
Ministers hope to secure private investment to save the plant in the longer term, but Jones admitted on Saturday that there were currently no companies willing to make an offer.
Saturday’s legislation is intended to provide an urgent temporary solution in the face of the threat to close the blast furnaces at Scunthorpe until a longer-term plan is agreed, and full nationalisation remains an option.
Unions welcomed the move but Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Labour of having “bungled the negotiations” and said “their incompetence has led to a last-minute recall of Parliament”.
Liberal Democrat Sir Ed Davey called the debate an opportunity to advance “a serious plan for the sustainable future of domestic steel production” while Reform UK leader Nigel Farage reiterated his backing for nationalisation.
