Parliament has passed emergency legislation safeguarding Britain’s steel industry, after what ministers described as an attempt by Chinese-owned British Steel to shut down the country’s last remaining blast furnaces without warning.
Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told MPs in the House of Commons on Saturday that the government had “no choice” but to intervene following what he characterised as an “unilateral” and “irrevocable” attempt by British Steel’s parent company, Jingye, to close primary steelmaking at the Scunthorpe site.
“We could not, will not, and never will, stand idly by while heat seeps from the UK’s remaining blast furnaces without any planning, any due process, or any respect for the consequences,” Reynolds told Parliament, in a dramatic opening statement that underscored the urgency of the situation.
The emergency Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill passed swiftly through both Houses of Parliament on Saturday and is now awaiting Royal Assent. It will become law at midnight.
According to Reynolds, the government had been negotiating with Jingye in good faith, offering substantial support to maintain blast furnace operations. However, he said the Chinese-owned firm made excessive demands and then sought to cancel raw material purchases essential to keeping the furnaces running.
“The British Government offered to purchase raw materials in a way that would have ensured no losses whatsoever for Jingye,” he said. “Instead, Jingye demanded hundreds of millions of pounds be transferred without conditions, risking the money and potentially other assets being moved directly to China.”
The situation escalated dramatically earlier in the day when workers at the Scunthorpe site reportedly blocked Chinese executives from entering sensitive areas of the plant. The Telegraph reported that the confrontation unfolded around 8am on Saturday morning, just hours before MPs convened for the emergency debate.
Sources told the paper that the workers feared the delegation was there to initiate a rapid shutdown of the blast furnaces. Humberside Police were called to the scene following reports of a potential breach of the peace. The Chinese delegation subsequently withdrew from the site.
The incident highlights growing tensions between British industrial interests and overseas ownership of critical infrastructure. British Steel, acquired by China’s Jingye Group in 2020, operates one of the UK’s last remaining producers of virgin steel—used in railways, construction, and major infrastructure projects.
Reynolds praised MPs across the political divide for supporting the emergency measures, and credited fellow ministers, including the Prime Minister, Chancellor, and Home Secretary, for enabling the response. He also recognised the advocacy of MPs representing steelmaking communities in Lincolnshire and Teesside.
The passage of the new legislation gives the government sweeping powers to secure the site and ensure continued operation while longer-term plans for the industry are assessed. It comes just weeks after the Spring Budget pledged dedicated funds for British steel and industrial strategy.
In Parliament, Reynolds made it clear that this intervention was not just economic, but strategic: “This is unequivocally in our national interest,” he said.
The government has yet to detail what operational steps will follow the new legislation, but industry sources expect the blast furnaces to be kept operational under temporary oversight, with longer-term stewardship arrangements now being explored.
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I don’t often support Labour.
But I applaud this, and the PM. The correct decision.
When will we learn to keep strategic assets under UK ownership.
Seems to me this was just another move in China’s long term mercantile war with the west, enabled by the stupid Tories agreeing to the sell off in the first place.
Certainly sounds as if they simply wanted to switch off the blast furnaces. Letting them cool down basically destroys the lining – expensive job relining a blast furnace. Industrial vandalism and a clever way to undermine our national industrial and infrastructure supply chains.
Cheers CR
Totally agree with the sentiment and a good day for the people of Scunthorpe and the country as a whole. Now we need to invest in new more efficient plant and stop countries such as dumping cheap steel into the U.K. It is a form of economic warfare that we have been blind to for far too long.
I’m glad we finally got past the thatcher era Laissez-faire, some times as with railways nationalisation is the best option and in this instance it was a clear example of a Chinese state owned company trying to screw up a British industrial asset. I think we should now keep British steel under UK government ownership and rebuild its furnace to use electricity. We should eventually have some of the cheapest electricity prices in Europe once we get rid of gas and rely on wind power. At least that way we will be locking in an eventual economic advantage that can one day be privatised when market conditions allow.
This is what we did with Rolls Royce and BAE back in the day.
I’m glad a British government finally grew a pair and did this.
You cannot rely on wind. Please show me a country that does. My country Australia certainly cannot rely on solar and wind. The nationalisation is pointless in the long term without cancelling the net zero con.
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Agreed mate. How could they not see his coming. We should have been building a brand new virgin steel plant 10 years ago. State of the art.Fit for the 2020s and decades beyond.
Hopefully this would put the final nail in the coffin for the new Chinese super embassy in London. The size of the building on an old historic site will hopefully be refused. I believe the Chinese appeal sits with Ms Rayners office after the application was initially refused by the local borough Council.. Chinese government are clearly behind the decision to close this plant and I also read a Lib Dem MP refused entry into Hong Kong on a visit to see her son and newly born grandson. China clearly looking to turn the screw on UK in a vindictive way.
Got to love the hypocrisy of the tories saying labour have messed this up when under there tenure one of the largest steel plants in Europe at Redcar closed down and they didn’t lift a finger. It’s also funny how Kemi keeps saying she had a deal in the works but refuses to release the details of that deal.
Just so people don’t think I’m bias (which i kind of am) I still think labour should have done this sooner and I’m still expecting them to bugger it up.
Labour was quite happy for ICI to be broken up. They let Rover close down & the assets be sold cheaply to the Chinese. The reality is that both Labour & Conservative governments have not been interested in British Industry for many decades. They pay lip service, don hi vis vests for photoshoots, but will not put real effort into reshoring industrial capability. Energy prices for UK industry are way too high. If you really want clean, cost effective steel, then building in the UK a new Austrian/Korean Finex plant would be the way to go.
Many will be surprised at the speed at which Starmer moved to take control of the last operating blast furnaces in the UK. For all their bluster the Conservatives voted in favour, so did the Lords and at about half five the King gave Royal Assent.
The Chinese owners are clearly a shifty bunch. Fortunately the APNR system at the gates of the Scunthorpe plant had aleady been programmed to deny their cars access, before they turned up at 0800hrs to shut the blast furnaces down
An all-round first class result and all credit to those involved, including the Humberside police, who took time out from checking people’s Twitter accounts for bad grammar and attended to prevent a breach of the peace. Shame they couldn’t do the same when one of my friends in Hessle was burgled over Xmas
Wow, possible attempted ChiCom gray/grey (😉) zone warfare w/in UK sovereign territory. And you Brits thought you only needed to be concerned by Mad Vlad and his merry band of Orcs! The CRINKs are working in concert to destabilize the West. Amazing feat by staff to foil the attempt.
Excellent! This is a milestone moment – the worm has turned. Hopefully marks the end of decades of foreign predators taking the country to the cleaners. Its refreshing to have a govt which governs in the national interest and for the common good.
Unfortunately we have a big cuckoo in the nest namely the City of London who make money from short term gains, which is the polar opposite of what is required to sustain and invest in industry of any type for long term economic success.
Our political class are in awe of the City but if it was managed properly I am sure it could provide a real lift to the rest of the economy but it would take real guts to take on the powerful vested interests that control much in the U.K..
The Royal Mail sale will likely make 30 million for city of London, that’s why they lobby for these big takeovers when they damage businesses by loading them with more debt.
This is irony I hope. Your Labour government is paying a corrupt China aligned tin pot island to take one of your remaining strategic assets. They are cancelling formal inquiries into grooming gangs. Britain continues to be flooded by low IQ, low impulse control people who will add to the drain on your Exchequer. Their tax and fiscal policies seem to be designed to destroy business and industry. I could go on but you get the general drift. The Tories were indolent and useless. Labour are quite obviously working against your national interest.
The correct decision. Although it should have happened in November 24, when the National Security Intelligence Report highlighted the deliberate measures by the Chinese owners in running down the 30 day coking inventory. From that point, they ran it to 21, 14 and now 10 days, with the two furnaces turn down in operation on the 10th April. Its the only reason why the government acted.
A week of talking and a day of Parliament, that is all it took to turn a plan into law. Never let a Government tell you they can’t do something, Parliament is sovereign and it’s will is law, they simply won’t.
Brilliant to see such decisive action taken, and I hope it signals the start of a more engaged British State.
The stupid carbon tax and high energy costs have damaged what’s left of heavy industry. Time to stop hedge funds and private equity buying businesses, asset stripping and loading with debt. When repairing a roads and concrete work near Port Talbot they were using re-bar from Portugal, surely that has bigger carbon footprint. Without steel production and processing you can’t fight a major war.
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