Chamber calls on Government to nationalise British Steel NOW!

The blast furnaces at the British Steel site in Scunthorpe which are under threat of closure.

THE Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce is calling on the Government to immediately nationalise the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe to protect its blast furnaces and keep thousands of local jobs, both at the plant and in the wider supply chain.

Dr Ian Kelly, Chief Executive of Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce, (pictured) calls on the Government to nationalise British Steel NOW!

“The Chamber’s sources indicate that a “Salamander Tap Operation” is underway which means that one of the two blast furnaces in Scunthorpe is subject to a complex engineering process which involves winding down the furnace for maintenance, which if done correctly can be restarted again, but the fears are that the Chinese owners Jingye, will not restart it.

“The Chamber wants to see Jingye continue to run the business as a going concern but it has already been announced that it is no longer ordering the raw materials required to make virgin steel and thousands of employees are in a consultation process about their futures”.

The Scunthorpe blast furnaces are the last ones in the country after the Tata Steel blast furnaces at Port Talbot was closed. The UK’s ability to make virgin steel is of vital national importance and is seen by business leaders as vital for the country’s future defence and security, especially in light of the increasingly unstable geo-political world we now find ourselves in. Then there are the concerns around Trump’s tariffs, the effects of which are still becoming clear.

If the two British Steel furnaces are closed, the UK would be the only country in the G7 not to have its own steelmaking ability which the Chamber considers to be completely unacceptable.

“While The Prime Minister said in the Commons Liaison Committee on Tuesday that “all options remain on the table”, but with the Chinese owners having cancelled the next batch of raw materials, it is essential to act NOW!” said Dr Kelly.

The plant’s high quality steel is used to provide Network Rail with 95% of its rail track in the UK which is just one of its important customers that relies on British Steel and the wider Scunthorpe business community which will be devastated if the blast furnaces were to close.