Top steel boss warns of ‘creeping renationalisation’

A leading steel industry figure has issued a warning about the ‘creeping renationalisation’ of the sector – calling on Ministers to limit state aid and focus on halting unfair foreign competition.

Sir Andrew Cook spoke out as it emerged that just two of Britain’s furnaces are free from Government control, with most of the sector in public hands for the first time since privatisation 37 years ago.

The official receiver has taken over two electric arc furnaces in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, after a judge granted a winding-up order against their owner, tycoon Sanjeev Gupta’s Speciality Steel UK.

Britain’s last blast furnaces, at British Steel’s plant in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, were seized from China’s Jingye in April. It leaves only furnaces run by Celsa, in Cardiff, and Marcegaglia, in Sheffield, free of state influence or control.

The two electric arc furnaces can make only a quarter of the 6 million tons produced last year, which included the last steel from Port Talbot’s blast furnaces.

A new electric arc furnace at Port Talbot will also be part-funded by the state under a deal agreed by the Tory government.

Burning issue: The UK now has only two furnaces free from state control

But critics say renationalisation is not the answer to the sector’s woes and more should be done to cut sky-high energy bills and curb dumping of cheap foreign steel.

Sir Andrew, the owner of steel firm William Cook, said: ‘I’ve no objection to the state equipping the British steel industry to compete, but it stops at that.’ He also called the Government ‘disingenuous’ in failing to ‘prioritise protection of the British steel industry from the dumping of cheap imports’.

He wants a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese-made steel, with taxpayers’ money spent on British steel for national infrastructure.

‘Unless the dumping is stopped, it doesn’t matter how efficient you make the UK industry – it’ll never be able to compete,’ he said. ‘The Government’s got it all wrong.’

Cook also repeated his call for Ministers to remove green levies on carbon from steelmaking.

Tory business spokesman Andrew Griffith called the problems ‘a crisis of Labour’s making’ due to a failure to bring energy prices down following ‘impossible net zero targets’. He said: ‘That’s why swathes of steel are being nationalised, leaving British taxpayers to foot the bill.’

Industry body UK Steel said British steel makers typically pay £66 per megawatt-hour for their electricity, compared with £43 in France and £50 in Germany.

The Department for Business and Trade, which has yet to publish its long-awaited steel strategy, said the sector should be run ‘commercially’ with ‘private investment’.