British Steel might not get enough materials to power Scunthorpe plant

Uncertainty continues to surround the future of British Steel’s Scunthorpe site, a day after the government stepped in.

A rare emergency vote in the House of Commons yesterday in the middle of the Easter break saw the British Steel blast furnaces being taken over by the government.

The vote was called after concern that the site’s Chinese owners, Jingye, appeared to break down.

The biggest concern was that if the blast furnaces ran out of raw materials, they could never be turned back on at the UK’s last primary steel-making facility, which employs 3,500 workers.

Now, the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has been quizzed over the future of the steel plant.

He declined to guarantee that British Steel will be able to secure enough raw materials in time to stay open, but he defended the decision for the government to swoop in.

Mr Reynolds told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: ‘If we hadn’t acted, the blast furnaces were gone, steel production in the UK, primary steel producing, would have gone.

‘So we’ve given ourselves the opportunity, we are in control of the site, my officials are on site right now to give us a chance to do that.’

He accused Jingye of not negotiating ‘in good faith.’

Today, he suggested the company has not been acting ‘rationally.’

However, he stopped short of accusing the Chinese government being involved with the British Steel issues. Jingye has links to the Chinese Communist Party – like all key firms from the country.

He said he would not have allowed a Chinese company to invest in the ‘sensitive’ steel sector in the first place.

The Business Secretary warned that the government is prepared to lose money when running British Steel.

Currently, the firm’s accounts reveal annual losses of £233,000,000.

We have approached British Steel for a comment.

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