this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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Britain plots state control of a flailing steelmaker. Here’s why. (www.politico.eu)
submitted 1 week ago by mc900ftJesus@lemy.lol to c/world@quokk.au
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Lawmakers will on Saturday debate emergency legislation that would give the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, the power to keep the S****horpe British Steel site running as the government tries to find a buyer to co-invest in the steelmaker.

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[–] notabot@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

The current situation is slightly more nuanced than that. The Chinese owners want to shut down the blast furnaces at the site, possibly as early as next week. Once the furnaces are shut down they cannot be restarted, so that would be the end of the site as a steel production factory, and it's the only one the UK has that can process iron ore, so it's considered critical.

The government's long term plan is to take the site into public ownership, then try to find private sector interest to take on part of it, but short term just to keep it alive long enough to be able to keep it running, with the happy side effect that a large number of jobs are not lost.

None of this is to say the situation with with the water companies is acceptable. Frankly they should already be publicly owned.