2,700 jobs safe as British Steel ends consultation on redundancies after Government takeover
22 April 2025, 16:04
British Steel has said it will end a consultation on up to 2,700 redundancies, after the UK Government took control of the firm earlier this month.
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Ministers took control of British Steel to ensure supplies such as coking coal and iron ore reach the site after talks with its Chinese owner, Jingye, broke down.
Jingye had refused to order more materials to keep the plant running, and British Steel had opened a consultation into the potential redundancies of the Scunthopre plant’s 2,700 employees.
Lisa Coulson, interim chief commercial officer at British Steel, said: "This has been a difficult and worrying time for British Steel staff and their families.
"I can, however, confirm that we are closing the redundancy consultation without action.
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"Since the Government passed its legislation on Saturday, we have been working day and night to ensure we are able to stabilise our operations.
"The work done to secure the raw materials we need for both Queen Anne and Queen Bess blast furnaces means we are able to run both continuously.
"We would like to thank our trade union partners for their professionalism and the support of their members over recent days and weeks.
"I would also like to thank everyone in our workforce for their extraordinary dedication."
The government’s intervention to keep the plant running was welcomed by steelworkers’ union Community, which said the arrival of the materials is a “huge relief” after Jingye’s “disgraceful actions” risked thousands of job losses.
The raw materials are necessary to prevent the cooling of the blast furnaces, which would risk irreparable damage to the plant systems.
Since the emergency legislation was passed, the government has indicated it was likely British Steel would be nationalised.
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Jonathan Reynolds told reporters nationalisation was the "likely option at this stage".
"What we are now going to do, having secured both control of the site and the supply of raw materials, so the blast furnaces won't close in a matter of days, is work on the future," he said.
"We've got the ownership question, which is pressing.
"I was clear when I gave the speech in parliament - we know there is a limited lifespan of the blast furnaces, and we know that what we need for the future is a private sector partner to come in and work with us on that transformation and co-fund that transformation."
The business secretary said he would look at Chinese firms "in a different way" after the race to save Scunthorpe.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said nationalisation of British Steel should "always be a last resort".
"Our offer has always been we need steel production in this country - move it on to modern fitting electric arc furnaces - that's gone now because Labour scrapped it,” she told BBC Radio 4.
"Nationalisation should always be a last resort because it's paid for by taxpayers - it's not free. There are costs associated with it.
"The reason why we're in this mess is because Labour got it wrong."
Addressing concerns over potential job losses, she said: "We need to have national resilience - we need to have steelmaking production.
"Sometimes jobs are lost as industries evolve. We need to look after those people - we need to make sure we leave an inheritance for the future."
