The business secretary has told Sky News he would not bring a Chinese company into the “sensitive” steel sector again – after the government was forced to take control of British Steel.
Urgent legislation rushed through the House of Commons and House of Lords on Saturday gave ministers the power to instruct British Steel – owned by Chinese company Jingye – to keep the plant open.
The Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill essentially allows the government to take control of British Steel “using force if necessary”, order materials for steelmaking and instruct that workers be paid. It also authorises a jail sentence of up to two years for anyone breaching this law.
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Jonathan Reynolds told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that he would not “personally bring a Chinese company into our steel sector” again, describing steel as a “sensitive area” in the UK.
The business secretary agreed there is now a high trust bar for Chinese companies to be involved in the UK economy.
He said: “I think steel is a very sensitive area. I don’t know… the Boris Johnson government when they did this, what exactly the situation was. But I think it’s a sensitive area.”
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Jingye stepped in with a deal to buy British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant out of insolvency in 2020, when Mr Johnson was prime minister.
But the company recently cancelled orders for supplies of raw materials needed to keep blast furnaces running at the site – the last in the UK capable of producing virgin steel.
This threw the future of the steel industry into question, and ultimately led to MPs and peers being recalled from parliamentary recess to take part in a rare Saturday sitting when negotiations with Jingye appeared to break down.
An emergency bill to save the plant became law later that day.
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Public ownership currently ‘likely option’
It stops short of full nationalisation of British Steel, but Reynolds told Sky News that public ownership remains the “likely option” for the future.
He said: “Well that remains an option. And to be frank, as I said to parliament yesterday, it is perhaps at this stage the likely option.”
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However, the minister said he believes there is “potential” for a commercial private sector partner.
He said: “That is my preference, but I feel we’ve got to find a bridge to that. The kind of investments required for the transition to new steel technology, whichever technology that is, it’s a lot of money, a lot of capital.”
Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, said the government’s emergency bill amounts to a “botched nationalisation”.
He told Sky News the Conservatives supported the “least worst” option in the Commons on Saturday.
“There’s clearly still more work to do because the taxpayer is now picking up the bills for a business that is still owned by its Chinese owner,” the Tory frontbencher said.
“I hope the government will very quickly come back and clarify that situation.”
