On Saturday, when MPs were supposed to be on their Easter holidays, a rare emergency sitting was called. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, told the House of Commons that they were meeting “in exceptional circumstances to take exceptional action in what are exceptional times”.
MPs passed a bill to save the Scunthorpe steelworks, a vital part of the UK’s critical infrastructure and the last remaining maker of mass-produced virgin steel. The emergency legislation allowed the government to instruct the Chinese owners of the British Steel plant, Jingye, to keep Scunthorpe open or face criminal penalties.
Jasper Jolly is a financial reporter for the Guardian. He tells Helen Pidd that the steelworks are central to life in Scunthorpe and that their loss would be devastating for the town. He explains that the plant has been loss-making for several years and that it is largely the glut of cheap Chinese steel in the global market that has led its owners to consider its closure.
The pair discuss why the government has taken control of Scunthorpe in a way that it did not with the Port Talbot steelworks, the race to keep the blast furnaces hot, and the way that this crisis has led many to question the wisdom of selling critical parts of the UK’s infrastructure to foreign and private companies.
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