British Steel’s nationalisation is a ‘likely option’, says business secretary

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Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds MPS told the British steel nationalization was a “potential choice” as his government took the extraordinary step of summoning parliament to prevent the company owners from closing the factory.

Reynolds said that the decision to summon parliament for the state of emergency sitting on Saturday was not lightly taken, as he defended the government’s negotiations with Jinji, the Chinese owner of the Penaten.

He said that the bill was a “proportional and necessary” step to maintain the primary steel industry in the United Kingdom and protect 3,500 jobs, although it does not want to maintain the new force “for a longer period of necessity.”

The representatives of the House of Commons voted in favor of Bill on Saturday afternoon, after no members were opposed.

Although the bill has wide support from all over the political parties of the House of Commons, Prime Minister Sir Kerr Starmer has been criticized by the conservatives who said that his party had exposed negotiations with Jenny.

“Instead of dealing with it earlier in the week when Parliament was sitting, its inefficiency led to a summons at the last minute of Parliament,” the Conservative Party leader Kimi Badnouch wrote X.

The discussion is the second time that the house was called from the holiday on Saturday, the other time to the Falkland War in 1982.

The 10 -pages of Reynolds will be given comprehensive forces to control any steel assets that are at risk of closing. Steel companies or managers who fail to comply with government orders or send them to two years in prison, according to the project.

The bill will allow the government to direct steel companies to keep the assets, and to assume these assets if companies fail to comply with these instructions. It also provides a compensation plan for the costs incurred by a company.

Reynolds admitted that emergency legislation was not a magic wand and that finding a partner in the private sector remained the preferred option for the government. However, nationalization has been the potential option in the long term, noting that the company’s market value was zero.

Reynolds MPS told the discussion that it has become clear in recent days that the Chinese company’s intention is to cancel and refuse to pay additional orders for raw materials to ensure the continued operation of British son -in -law, and the second remaining remaining in the United Kingdom.

He added that the government offered to pay the price of the materials, but instead made the opposite of ministers to pay hundreds of millions of pounds without any conditions.

Andrew Griffiths, the shadow minister, accused the government of “nine months of skiing and delay” and “a failed nationalization of steel making with British taxpayer on the hook.”

People close to Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that it took a great time and effort to change the mentality of White Etols to make them accept the government’s radical intervention and the potential nationalization of steel work.

Emergency discussion comes after talks with Jinji to keep ovens. Jingye, who seized BRISISH Steel in 2020, was holding talks with the government for more than 18 months due to taxpayers support to move to the most greening steel forms.

She rejected an offer of 500 million pounds from the ministers last month after a warning that the operations were no longer “financially viable”. The company said it is losing more than 700,000 pounds per month due to a higher tariff and non -competitive energy costs.

MPS has seized this logic in this logic to argue that the UK government moved zero to zero pays the price of energy to the top and must be mitigated.

The reform has argued about the reconstruction of the British steel, in a position suffering from a dispute with the conservatives, but is in line with the majority of the British public.

A survey on YouGov this week suggested about 60 percent of public support support.

Jenny was not immediately available to comment on Saturday.

The Minister of Industry, Sarah Jones, said earlier that the deputies faced a choice between passing the government bill or seeing the end of the primary steel industry in the United Kingdom.

“If the smelting furnaces are closed in an unplanned manner, they will never be reopened, then the steel is reinforced only in those ovens and nothing can be done.”

Preserving the Steel industry in Britain has become a strategic priority for the government, which has placed 2.5 billion pounds to support the sector. The closure of the British son -in -law will see the UK as the only G7 without the ability to make steel from scratch.

The Starmer government is developing an industrial strategy to support the decisive sectors, and is particularly concerned about threatening steel from US President Donald Trump’s tariff of 25 percent on steel and aluminum imports.

Participated in additional reports from Chan Ho-Him in Hong Kong