Comment: Parliament recalled to discuss emergency legislation around British Steel

"Job losses are a grim prospect for anyone but could have been particularly devastating in communities like Scunthorpe that rely heavily on one or two industrial sites. Steel production in the UK has been declining since the 1970s, long before climate commitments, and the lingering gas crisis has forced up energy bills to a crunch point for Scunthorpe. Clearly, we cannot afford to stick with the status quo. 

“Successive Governments could have acted earlier to secure a future for the steel industry if they’d had a strategy like the EU's recent Steel Action Plan, but UK investments and policies have been piecemeal without a clear direction for decades. Lowering electricity prices, through more renewables, reducing the time gas sets the price and the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements, and boosting the British Industry Supercharger so that industrial network charges are similar to Europe's are options the Government could still leverage. 

“As we build more energy infrastructure like wind turbines and the rest of the world moves to clean steel, it makes sense for us to develop our green steel industries to build the technologies in Britain and ensure that jobs in places like Scunthorpe have a long term future."