The UK government stepped in over the weekend to stop the last British steel plant that makes steel from scratch from shutting down. Lawmakers were called in for a rare Saturday session to approve an emergency bill aimed at keeping the furnaces at the Scunthorpe plant running.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the special sitting, one of only six held on a Saturday since World War II, to prevent the Chinese-owned Jingye Group from closing down the two blast furnaces at the British Steel site. Those furnaces are key to making virgin steel.
The bill gives Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds new powers. He can now direct the company’s leadership, make sure its 3,000 employees are paid, and order the raw materials needed to keep the furnaces going.
Jingye has claimed the site is losing £700,000 (around $910,000 USD) every day due to tough market conditions and rising environmental costs. They also said a recent move by President Donald Trump to slap a 25 percent tariff on imported steel has added to the pressure.
After lawmakers approved the bill by voice vote in the House of Commons, Starmer traveled to Scunthorpe to meet with steelworkers. Many in the town were relieved that the steelworks, part of the local economy for nearly 150 years, will continue, reports the New York Post.
“You and your colleagues for years have been the backbone of British Steel, and it’s really important that we recognize that,” Starmer said. “It’s your jobs, your lives, your communities, your families.”
That relief was on display at the Scunthorpe United soccer match, where fans cheered on a group of steelworkers who stood on the field during halftime. The team is nicknamed “The Iron.”
Jingye recently canceled orders for iron pellets, a raw material needed for the blast furnaces. Without them—and other essentials like coking coal—the furnaces could shut down permanently. Once they cool, restarting them is extremely difficult and costly.
If the furnaces had gone offline, the UK would have become the only G7 nation without the ability to make its own steel from raw materials. That would have left industries like construction, defense, and rail depending on foreign sources.
“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,” Reynolds told lawmakers.
Reynolds also called out Jingye for making “excessive” demands during talks with the government. He said that without action, the company would have “irrevocably and unilaterally closed down primary steel making at British Steel.”
The law doesn’t make the government the official owner of the plant—at least not yet. But Reynolds didn’t rule out that happening in the future.
It’s not clear how much control Jingye will have now that the law is in place. If the company doesn’t follow the new rules, its executives could face legal action.
This Story originally came from humanevents.com