Today, the Labour government passed emergency legislation to save the steel factory in Scunthorpe, after Parliament was recalled for only the 34th time since 1948 to deal with the crisis.
The Bill was passed unanimously in the House of Commons allowing the Government to direct the workforce and order the raw materials needed to keep the blast furnaces running at British Steel.
The Jingye Group, the owner in Scunthorpe, this week cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
If the Labour government had not stepped in it would have meant the end of steelmaking in Scunthorpe after 160 years and would have cost 2,700 jobs.
Terry Jermy MP, Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk, said, “As the Prime Minister stated this government will always act in the national interest to protect British jobs and British workers, and today, we did just that.
“This is a sector that is fundamental to our national security as well our national identity.
“This decisive action has brought security to the thousands of steelworkers at the site, their families and the community of Scunthorpe. Steel is one of the most strategically important industries in the UK and provides thousands of all high skilled jobs and Labour are securing the country’s long-term economic future.”
Since taking office last July, Labour have committed and reserved £2.5 billion for steel, in addition to the £500 million for the transformation at Port Talbot. As well as launching a new Steel Council, a forum of government, leading steel manufacturers such as Tata Steel and British Steel, industry experts, trade unions, trade associations and devolved administrations and launching a major consultation that has just finished.
Kemi Badenoch, while serving as Business and Trade Secretary, when asked if the UK always needed a steel industry, in her first interview as Secretary of State, said “nothing is ever a given”. In her year and a half as Business & Trade Secretary, Badenoch met with UK steel companies on just three occasions.
Reform mentioned steel just once in their manifesto and offered no policies to protect British steel, while Nigel Farage has never spoken about steel in the House of Commons. In the past, he even voted against measures in the European Parliament to protect UK steel.
Jermy added, “Under the Tories, the steel industry was left lurching from crisis to crisis, with successive Conservative government failing to plan for the long term and, just like prisons and the NHS, left a sector on its knees for the Labour government to inherit.”
ENDS
