Emergency law passed to force loss-making steelworks to keep operating

Special powers granted to prevent the collapse of British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant

- Toby Helm Political Editor & Jasper Jolly

Emergency legislation allowing the government to instruct companies to keep loss-making steel operations in England open, or face criminal penalties for their executives, were passed yesterday during an extraordinary sitting of parliament.

MPs and peers trooped into Westminster for a rare Saturday sitting after Keir Starmer and a small team of cabinet ministers decided on Friday morning that special powers were needed for the business secretary Jonathan Reynolds to prevent the collapse of British Steel's Scunthorpe steelworks, with the furnaces going out, and the loss of thousands of jobs.

The recall of parliament from its Easter recess, only the sixth Saturday sitting since the second world war, was ordered after negotiations with British Steel’s Chinese owners, Jingye, appeared to break down.

Opening yesterday’s debate, Reynolds said the government had been in talks with Jingye last July and had offered “substantial” support. Most recently, Labour had offered to purchase the necessary raw materi-

als for the blast furnaces, the last primary virgin steel-making facilities in the UK, but this had been met with a counter offer from Jingye demanding “an excessive amount” of support.

Reynolds continued: “Over the last few days, it became clear that the intention of Jingye was to refuse to purchase sufficient raw material to keep the blast furnaces running; in fact, their intention was to cancel and refuse to pay for existing orders. The company would therefore have irrevocably and unilaterally closed down primary steelmaking at British Steel.

“We could not, will not and never will stand idly by while heat seeps from the UK’s remaining blast furnaces without any planning, any due process or any respect for the consequences. And that is why I needed colleagues here today”