UK Steel’s warning came as the gloom over the pending closure of the SSI slab plant at Redcar spread to Scunthorpe.
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Labour MP for Redcar Anna Turley told her party’s conference this afternoon that Redcar steel built the modern world, but now “feels at the mercy of it”, powerless to survive with a “Tory government turning its back on the industry”.
SSI United Kingdom business director Cornelius Louwrens said: “This is an extremely sad day for all of us at SSI United Kingdom”.
To this effect, it will continue to operate its Redcar coke ovens and the power stations.
A petition campaigning for the Government to step in and save Teesside’s steel industry has already amassed more than 12,000 signatures – if it reaches 100,000 it will be considered for a debate in Parliament.
GMB national officer David Hulse said the news was absolutely devastating.
Unions continued to press the Government to intervene to try to save as many jobs as possible, and to make sure the mothballing was carried out to the best level so that steelmaking could resume in the future.
“The blast furnace must be mothballed properly to give it the chance of a future. Now is the time to demonstrate the political will to see a vital foundation industry continue”. The price of steel has nearly halved over the past year, with overproduction in the world market.
Steel switched between public and private ownership between the 1930s and the 1960s until in 1967 the Labour government nationalised the industry by forming the British Steel Corporation (BSC) under the Iron and Steel Act.
SSI is not the only steelmaker feeling the pressure – with the UK’s biggest producer, Tata Steel, also reeling from the impact of weakening demand and cheap imports amid the economic slowdown in China and other emerging markets. It is not too late for them to do so while the furnaces are still burning.
Editor Peter Barron is the son of a steelworker and grew up in the steel community of South Bank, near Middlesbrough.
SSI’s fairytale arrival to revitalise the plant is well documented, so there is potential scope it could happen again.
Teesiders have shown their dignity and commitment to steel making.
The Redcar plant was last mothballed in 2010 by then owner Corus Steel but was bought by Thailand-based SSI the following year and brought back into production in 2012.
“It’s not prepared to learn the lesson that the Italian Government could have quite easily have taught them – that you can intervene”.
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Strategic industries like steel, which underpin other sectors from aerospace to automotive and construction, can not be allowed to fail. “This Government’s ideological decision not to have an industrial strategy is putting jobs at risk”.
