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The British government has published draft legislation that will give ministers sweeping powers to take control of any steel assets deemed to be at risk of shutting down.
Steel companies or managers who fail to comply with the government’s orders could be fined or sent to jail for two years, according to a draft bill that will be debated by MPs in Parliament on Saturday. MPs have been recalled to save British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant from imminent closure with the loss of 3,500 jobs.
Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said on Friday that the emergency legislation would allow ministers to take control of the site in Lincolnshire and stop its Chinese owner from closing its blast furnaces, the last two in the UK.
Senior government officials have claimed that Jingye, which bought British Steel in 2020, had been willing to let the two blast furnaces close down, essentially putting them out of action forever.
Ministers held talks with Jingye this week to keep production going after the Chinese company said the furnaces were no longer “financially viable”.
The two sides, however, remained deadlocked despite the government offering to pay for the raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running. Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said that the government had been left with no option but “to act”.
The 10-page bill will give the government power to instruct steel companies to keep assets running, and to take over those assets if companies fail to comply with those instructions.
The bill also provides for a compensation scheme for costs incurred by a company.
The Secretary of State for business “may do anything for the purpose of securing the continued and safe use of the specified assets that the steel undertaking, or any relevant person in relation to that undertaking, could do”, according to the draft bill.
Industry minister Sarah Jones said MPs faced a choice between passing the government’s bill or seeing the end of primary steelmaking in the UK.
She told Sky News: “If blast furnaces are closed in an unplanned way, they can never be reopened, the steel just solidifies in those furnaces and nothing can be done.”
Maintaining Britain’s steelmaking has become a strategic priority for the government, which has put aside £2.5bn to support the sector.
Starmer’s government is also developing an industrial strategy to back crucial sectors, and is particularly concerned about the threat to the steel industry from US President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent global tariff on steel and aluminium imports.
