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Lawmakers in the UK returned to Parliament from their Easter on Saturday to approve an emergency rescue of the country’s last remaining factory that makes steel directly from raw materials.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called on lawmakers for the extremely unusual Saturday to discuss a bill aimed at blocking British Steel’s Chinese owners, Jingye Group, to close the ovens at the Scunthorpe plant in the north of England.
If the bill is approved, what is expected, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds will have the power to direct the company’s board and workforce, to ensure that workers are paid and order the raw materials needed to run the plant’s two massive ovens.
Starmer said on Friday that the future of the plant “hangs in the balance”, which requires the need for the rapid legislation and the revocation of parliament.
Although Starmer did not use the term ‘nationalization’, he said that all options remain on the table for the steel works, which directly employ about 2,700 workers.
The decision to introduce the emergency legislation was urgently added by the recent move by Jingye to cancel orders for the iron grains used in the ovens. Without the grains and other raw materials, they are likely to have to close for days for days.
It is unclear what role Jingye, owner of British Steel since 2020, will have in the daily management of the steel works as soon as the legislation is accepted.
Jingye, who said that the Scunthorpe plant is financially unsustainable due to “challenging market conditions” and increased environmental costs, has for months demanded a rescue from the government, but discussions did not reach a successful result. Last month’s decision by US President Donald Trump to set up a 25% tariff on imported steel was another blow.
Although Starmer expressed disappointment, he did not retaliate again and tried to negotiate the rates away.
Trade unions welcomed its initiative to call back parliament and expressed the hope that it would eventually lead to the government taking ownership of the plant.
“It is in the national interest that a solution is found to ensure a future for British Steel as an important strategic enterprise,” says Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the Union community. “We cannot allow Britain to become the only G7 country without primary steel manufacturing.”
At the peak in the post -war period, British steel manufacturing was a world leader and employed more than 300,000 people before cheaper offers from China and other countries hit production. It now has about 40,000 directly employed, with the industry accounting for only 0.1% of the UK economy.
Britain’s remaining steel makers are under pressure to reduce carbon emissions. Most have moved to electric arched oven that make steel of recycled material. This has left scinthorpe as the only factory with explosion oven that can convert iron ore into virgin steel.
The steel industry is ‘part of our national story’, Starmer said.
The last time lawmakers were called back to sit on a Saturday was in 1982, in the wake of Argentina’s invasion of Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
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