To stop the surreptitious sabotage, and destruction, of the UK’s last remaining virgin-steel blast furnace at Scunthorpe, and rescue the British steel industry. Scunthorpe, in the north-east, has been a hub of steel production for over 150 years, and provides about 70 per cent of Britain’s requirements. In 2020 the Chinese steel conglomerate Jingye purchased Scunthorpe from receivership, pledging to invest 1.2 billion pounds to modernise and upgrade the facility. Privatisation, deregulation, and an ideological fervour for global comparative advantage led policymakers to favour cheaper imported steel over domestic investment. As global supply chains expanded, Britain ceded more and more production capacity to lower-cost countries, prioritising ‘cheap’ over ‘sustainable and secure’, leaving sites like Scunthorpe increasingly exposed.

Source: The Times June 11, 2025 09:29 UTC