Ministers: act to save our steel plea

The UK government’s failure to act swiftly and decisively to support the British industry is leaving it on the verge of wipe out. Tata Steel’s latest announcement to axe a further 1,050 jobs takes the toll of job losses in recent months to over 5,000.

Port Talbot, Llanwern, Trostre, Corby and Hartlepool have become the latest communities to be hit by the crisis engulfing the industry whiles steel workers from Motherwell to Redcar and Rotherham to Scunthorpe count the cost of closures and job losses.

The knock on effects of these latest job losses as with the others, will be felt throughout the supply chain and the wider manufacturing community, torpedoing George Osborne’s promise to rebalance the economy.

Take Tata Steel’s plant in Scunthorpe for example. One in four of the region’s full time jobs rely on the plant which makes over 90 per cent the UK’s rail tracks. A source of decent well paid jobs and a key driver for growth, British steel is the best in world and central part in all our daily lives.

Yet the government, which promised a ‘march of the makers’ and to rebalance the economy, is devoid of an industrial strategy to support this proud and once mighty industry.

Shamed

Shamed to do something following the closure of the steelworks in Redcar government, ministers have talked a good talk, but delivered little. Promises to compensate the industry for high energy costs have yet to be received.

Meanwhile European summits to tackle the dumping of cheap Chinese steel have yealded nothing and moved at a glacial pace as ministers consider approving China’s bid for ‘market economy status’.

When will the penny drop with government ministers that a strategically important part of the UK economy faces oblivion because of their continued failure to take decisive and swift action?

The penny dropped years ago with countries like Germany and the USA. Their governments support their steel industries either through an integrated industrial strategy or through import licences and duties.

And while UK ministers may point to recent government guidance on the procurement of British steel for infrastructure projects, it risks being just more fine words and little action. Orders are what steelmakers in the UK need and need fast, backed up with cast iron guarantees that if it’s built for Britain it uses British steel.

The ‘hands free’ approach of the government towards the steel industry needs to change. Government minsters need to implement an industrial strategy with steel running through its heart, which supports skills, communities and decent well jobs.

The alternative is an ever dwindling industrial base and a self-defeating hollowing out of skills and communities as the promise to re-balance the economy becomes an ever distant pipedream.

 This article first appeared in Labour List, January 19