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Associated Press

The UK was “naive” to allow its sensitive steel industry to fall into the hands of a Chinese company, Britain’s business secretary said on Sunday after the government took control of British Steel.
But Jonathan Reynolds said he did not suspect the Chinese state of trying to tank the plant in northern England, the country’s last factory able to make steel from scratch.
The government rushed urgent legislation through parliament on Saturday to stop the Scunthorpe plant’s blast furnaces from turning off, after its Chinese owners Jingye said it was no longer financially viable to keep them burning.
Jingye bought British Steel in 2020 and says it has invested more than £1.2 billion (US$1.5 billion) to maintain operations but was losing around £700,000 a day.
“As a country we’ve got it wrong in the past,” business and trade secretary Reynolds told Sky News on Sunday, blaming previous Conservative leaders for allowing Chinese companies to run sensitive infrastructure.
“It was far too naive about some of this,” he said.

He argued a balance was needed. Some sectors were “more sensitive than others”, he said, adding that “a lot of UK-Chinese trade is in non-contentious areas”.
Discussing the troubles with the Scunthorpe plant, he said: “I’m not accusing the Chinese state of being directly behind this.
“I actually think they will understand why we could not accept the proposition that was put to us, in terms of losing that essential national capacity. So I’m not alleging some sort of foreign influence.”
He later told the BBC that Jingye had turned down an offer of support of around £500 million, instead requesting more than twice that amount with few guarantees the furnaces would stay open.

Reynolds also declined to guarantee the government, which came to power last year, could get enough raw materials to keep the two furnaces going before supplies run out.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer recalled parliament for a rare Saturday session – only the sixth since World War II – to push through legislation, warning that the plant was facing imminent shutdown with thousands of jobs at risk.
The government saw its possible closure as a threat to Britain’s long-term economic security, given the decline of the UK’s once robust steel industry.
The bill gives Reynolds the power to direct the company’s board and workforce, ensure its 3,000 workers get paid and order the raw materials necessary to keep the blast furnaces running.
The recent decision by US President Donald Trump to impose a 25 per cent tariffs on imported steel has not helped the steel plant.
After parliament passed the bill, Starmer headed to Scunthorpe to meet workers, who were clearly relieved that the town’s steelmaking heritage, which stretches back around 150 years, has been preserved.
“You and your colleagues for years have been the backbone of British Steel, and it’s really important that we recognise that,” Starmer said. “It’s your jobs, your lives, your communities, your families.”

The relief in the town was evident during the interval of Scunthorpe United’s soccer match, where the crowd at the Attis Arena cheered on a few dozen steelworkers on the field of play. The team is known as “The Iron”, a fond reflection of the town’s identity.
Starmer had been under pressure to act after Jingye’s recent decision to cancel orders for the iron pellets used in the blast furnaces.
Without them and other raw materials, such as coking coal, the furnaces would probably have to shut for good, potentially within days, as they are extremely difficult and expensive to restart once cooled.


That would mean the UK, which in the late 19th century was the world’s steelmaking powerhouse, would be the only country in the Group of Seven industrial nations without the capacity to make its own steel from scratch rather than from recycled material, which use greener electric arc furnaces rather than blast furnaces.
The repercussions would be huge for industries like construction, defence and rail and make the country dependent on foreign sources for so-called virgin steel, a vulnerability that lawmakers from all political parties balked at.
“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, and that is why I needed colleagues here today,” Reynolds told lawmakers.
Reynolds criticised Jingye for making “excessive” demands of the government in discussions in recent months, and that without the government’s intervention, the company would have “irrevocably and unilaterally closed down primary steel making at British Steel”.
Though the legislation does not transfer ownership of the plant to the state, Reynolds conceded it was a future possibility.
It is unclear what role Jingye will have in the day-to-day running of the steelworks. But should it fail to abide by the new laws, the company and its executives could face legal sanctions.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse


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But Jonathan Reynolds said he did not suspect China of trying to tank the Scunthorpe plant, the UK’s last factory able to make steel from scratch


But Jonathan Reynolds said he did not suspect China of trying to tank the Scunthorpe plant, the UK’s last factory able to make steel from scratch.
