Last weekend our local MPs sought deification for doing what their constituents do every week, working on a Saturday. Yet it was simply another example of how chaotic this government is.
Despite having had fourteen years to prepare for return to government, they came without a plan. Their legislative programme is the smallest of any new government in living memory, and Parliament shuts up shop early most days.
Scunthorpe’s closure was announced last month, but the last time Parliament debated any legislation was the 2nd April. Saturday’s legislation has been in the works for weeks, and the recall will have been in the planning since before the house rose for the Easter recess.
Yet they chose an expensive showboating exercise, flying MPs back from around the world and leaving steel workers hanging on until the very last minute, in order to gain maximum press exposure. But on Sunday we found out that they may have left it too late, when the Business Secretary refused to confirm that the blast furnaces will stay on this week. Once they go out, they’re gone.
Allowing Jingye to take control of the company in 2020 was a mistake, despite theirs being the only credible offer on the table. I was one of the ones in Parliament clear about that. We had a Jingye asset here in Workington, and I fought at the time to try and stop it falling into their hands.
As a former British Steel Apprentice I worked there. At that time, of course, it was a much bigger deal. That was before it was closed down under a Labour government and a Labour MP. There are differing views on Mrs Thatcher’s privatisation of the original British Steel, but she would never have allowed it to fall into foreign control, which is why the government kept a golden share that prevented any owner acquiring more than 15%. Golden shares were later ruled illegal by the EU.
It’s right that Scunthorpe comes back into UK control, but the cack-handed way this government are going about it has me very worried. They could have forced the sale to UK shareholders. They could have taken ownership of the company, before then restoring it to private UK ownership. Instead, they simply taken control of the company while Jingye remain the owner. The taxpayer is on the hook for it’s £700,000 per day losses, but if it’s nursed back to health Jingye get the benefit. None of our MPs raised this in the debate, and Government will have to come back to fix their ineptitude soon.
But perhaps this could mark a turning point for the government, and they could rethink their policies on domestic mining, renewable energy levies, and new nuclear – decisions on which they’ve already delayed by an extra year. We can’t have a competitive steel industry with some of the highest industrial energy costs in the world, or if we have to import all the raw materials when we have them under our feet.
What our MPs never tell you when they’re fighting mining here in Cumbria is that the coal will be required even in the new age of electric arc furnaces. I’ve been to Sweden and met with Hybrit, who are pioneering hydrogen steel. They use coking coal in their electric arc furnaces for its chemical properties. Sweden also put their own domestic interests first – they’re increasing their mining activity, not banning it to embolden authoritarian regimes on who we’ll be reliant in the world led by Ed and Keir, cheered on by our naïve local greasy-pole-climbers.
