Scunthorpe united at last: How the UK's last steel plant was saved (2025)

Scunthorpe’s British Steel blast furnaces have been saved after emergency legislation passed through Parliament unopposed in an extraordinary sitting on Saturday.

The law gives the Secretary of State for Business the power to instruct steel companies in England to keep facilities open, with criminal penalties for executives if they fail to comply.

The Government took the extraordinary step of recalling Parliament from its Easter recess to sit on Saturday after negotiations with British Steel’s Chinese owners, Jingye, appeared to break down. The last Saturday recall was in 1982 for a debate on the Falklands War.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds accused the company of failing to negotiate “in good faith” after it decided to stop buying enough raw materials to keep the blast furnaces at Scunthorpe going.

He told MPs: “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.

The Conservatives said the Government should have acted sooner. Shadow leader of the House Alex Burghart accused Labour ministers of making “a total pig’s breakfast of this whole arrangement”.

Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith said the Government was seeking a “blank cheque”, while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch claimed Labour had “botched” a deal she had negotiated with British Steel while business secretary.

She did not provide details of the deal, saying negotiations were still ongoing when last year’s election was called. Her deal “would have succeeded better” than Reynolds’s plan, the Conservative leader claimed.

Reynolds said Labour had been engaged in negotiations with Jingye since the party came to power last July, and had offered “substantial” support.

The Government said it most recently offered to purchase the necessary raw materials for the blast furnaces, the last primary steel-making facilities in the UK. This had been met with a counter offer from Jingye demanding “an excessive amount” of support, it said.

Reynolds accused Jingye of intentionally cancelling and refusing to pay for existing orders so it could close down British Steel and continue its works back in China.

Hours before MPs were set to debate the emergency legislation, workers at the Scunthorpe plant prevented Chinese executives from Jingye from gaining access to key areas of the steelworks.

Police said they had been called to the works at 8.30am after “a suspected breach of the peace”. No arrests were made, Humberside Police later confirmed.

Ministers said the emergency measures in Parliament were necessary to keep the Scunthorpe blast furnaces open and protect both the UK’s primary steelmaking capacity and the 3,500 jobs involved.

Reynolds insisted this was a “proportionate and necessary step”, adding he wanted it to be a “temporary position” with the powers not lasting “any minute longer than is necessary”.

Both MPs and Lords raised concerns that there was no “sunset clause” in the legislation that would ensure an expiry date on the powers given to ministers.

Burghart said it was “deeply regrettable” that a sunset clause was not included by the Government. Sir Iain Duncan Smith warned the Government would get “taken down side tracks” if it did not include the clause. “Before you know what’s happened, the powers are beginning to be used for the wrong purpose,” he said.

Business minister Baroness Jones of Whitchurch said a sunset clause would threaten to cause further uncertainty and create “an arbitrary deadline” for when the future of a plant would need to be settled by.

The Government later insisted it would return to the Commons in six months time to allow further debate on the powers.

While debate continued in Parliament, Sir Keir Starmer met with steelworkers near Scunthorpe to discuss his Government’s plans for the plant.

The Prime Minister told them: “You are the people who have kept this going. You and your colleagues for years have been the backbone of British Steel, and it’s really important that we recognise that.”

Saturday’s emergency legislation stops short of full nationalisation of British Steel, and ministers remain hopeful that they can secure private investment to save the plant.

But there is currently no private company willing to invest in British Steel, and the Business Secretary acknowledged to the Commons that public ownership remained the “likely option”.

During Saturday’s debate, Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice urged the Government to “show your cojones” and go further by fully nationalising British Steel “this weekend”.

Several Conservative MPs also spoke in favour of nationalisation, while Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper said recalling Parliament had been “absolutely the right thing to do”.

The Government was criticised for acting to save the Scunthorpe plant but not taking the same action when the Tata Steel works in Port Talbot were threatened with closure.

Liberal Democrat Wales spokesman David Chadwick said workers in South Wales “will be asking themselves how this unjust situation was ever allowed to occur”.

Earlier, industry minister Sarah Jones said the different approach was due to Tata’s willingness to invest in Port Talbot, and the changed global circumstances making it necessary to protect the UK’s primary steelmaking capacity.