Labour plan to nationalise British steel industry blasted as ‘complete disgrace’

Labour considering renationalising British Steel is a “complete disgrace”, according to a former minister who has accused the Government of bringing about the demise of the UK steel industry.

Sir John Redwood told Express.co.uk: “What are they nationalising? They’re closing it all down. So why do you need to nationalise something you’ve closed. I think they’ve made a bad mistake on that.

“They’ve implied in Opposition that they’d do better and then they closed it down more quickly. I think it’s a complete disgrace, I want to save much more of the steel industry. But you see, they won’t do the most obvious things to do that.

“I was urging for a long time that they need to take off the carbon taxes and cut the energy cost dramatically, because we’ve basically taxed and priced steel out of our country.”

Former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng also attacked Labour failing to rule out taking British Steel back into public ownership.

“We’ve been round the houses on this”, he told this website. “People think it’s [nationalisation] the answer to everything, but it just means you’re going to pay more tax because the government needs more money to run these industries.

“I mean, where do you think the money’s coming from?”

A Whitehall insider told The Guardianthat renationalisation was not off the table, saying: “It is one of several options being looked at. We would have been negligent not to look at it. But it is the least attractive option. We would be talking substantial sums of money to buy not very much.”

A spokesman for the Business Department didn’t exclude the possibility of renationalising British Steel – a move that would reverse the 1988 decision of the Thatcher government to privatise it – but added that there are no “plans” to do so.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said: “Labour can’t expect the British taxpayer to pick up the bill for every industry they make uncompetitive.”

Trade unions back the Government taking British Steel back into public ownership.

Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, an officer with GMB trade union, said: “Recent history has shown we must retain control over crucial industries like steel. Leaving domestic production to the whims of the open market is sheer folly.

“Rather than forking out billions of taxpayer cash to reward private sector failure, the money should be used to renationalise our once proud steel sector.”

A Business Department spokesman said: “We have no plans to nationalise British Steel.

“We’re working across government in partnership with trade unions and businesses to secure a green steel transition that’s right for the workforce, represents a good investment for taxpayers and safeguards the future of the steel industry in Britain.”