THE TRUTH ABOUT STEEL

Lord Houchen has been spreading a lot of nonsense this weekend. He is shameless.  The government is fighting to keep the steel industry in this country  FULL STOP. After his Tory government left it in crisis, Port Talbot has already had to close its blast furnaces, and Scunthorpe is at risk of the same, losing thousands of jobs as we did in 2015.

Back then, we proposed EAFs here in Redcar to manage a transition and keep our steel jobs , but the Conservatives refused.  They smashed our steel industry here and then pretended to come in as white knights to ‘bring steelmaking back,’ when the British Steel Teesside EAF was always a commercial decision that had never been signed off.

This government is negotiating with the parent company Jingye to keep British Steel in the country altogether.  It would be fantastic to have an EAF right away on Teesside as part of this, but protecting existing jobs both here on Teesside and across the country has to be the immediate priority.

Decades of neglect have left our steel industry lurching from crisis to crisis.  We have to rebuild the foundations first.  And this means we might not get everything we want immediately.

Lord Houchen needs to grow up.  He needs to take a more responsible approach to business and investment  and stop the empty posturing.  Recognise that the UK must have a strong steel industry for its security and independence , and Teesside will play its full part in that!