Intervention follows a breakdown in talks between the UK government and British Steel\u2019s Chinese owner, Jingye Group.<\/p>\n
The UK government has taken effective control of British Steel in order to keep its blast furnaces running, after lawmakers approved an emergency rescue.<\/p>\n
With 3,500 jobs hanging in the balance, British ministers rushed to push through legislation on Saturday to allow the state to temporarily assume operational control.<\/p>\n
The intervention follows a breakdown in talks between the UK government and British Steel\u2019s Chinese owner, Jingye Group, over plans to transition the firm to greener production methods.<\/p>\n
After the vote, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer travelled to the site, warning that the blast furnaces \u2013 losing $915,600 (700,000 pounds) a day \u2013 were on the brink of closure.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou and your colleagues for years have been the backbone of British Steel, and it\u2019s really important that we recognize that,\u201d Starmer said. \u201cIt\u2019s your jobs, your lives, your communities, your families.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers had been recalled from their Easter recess for the emergency Saturday sitting.<\/p>\n
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told MPs that the new law would give the government power to manage operations, ensure workers are paid, and secure vital raw materials to keep the furnaces going.<\/p>\n
Reynolds said a full state takeover was \u201cincreasingly likely\u201d given the conduct of the firm\u2019s current owners. \u201cA failure to act today would prevent any more desirable outcome from even being considered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The bill passed the House of Commons unopposed.<\/p>\n
If nationalised, British Steel would become the UK\u2019s largest state rescue since the 2008 banking crisis.<\/p>\n
The collapse of its Scunthorpe operations would leave the UK as the only G7 nation unable to produce virgin steel \u2013 made directly from raw materials like iron ore and coke.<\/p>\n
Already under pressure from a global supply glut and soaring energy prices, the company was further hit by new US tariffs of 25 percent, affecting 5 percent of its annual steel exports worth approximately $520m.<\/p>\n
Reynolds stressed that reliance on foreign steel would grow if the furnaces shutdown, and pledged to fight for their future while also pushing to lift US trade restrictions.<\/p>\n
The government has already pledged $3.2bn to support the steel sector and aims to unveil a long-term strategy in the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Intervention follows a breakdown in talks between the UK government and British Steel\u2019s Chinese owner, Jingye Group. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,12633,1700,393,4884,6084,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-19281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-business-and-economy","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-infrastructure","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114336533299061221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}