The UK government has taken control of Britain’s last remaining primary steelmaking facility from its Chinese owners in an emergency move aimed at preserving the country’s steel production capacity.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called an unusual Saturday sitting of Parliament—only the sixth since the Second World War—where lawmakers approved a bill preventing British Steel’s Chinese owner, Jingye Group, from shutting down two key blast furnaces at its Scunthorpe plant in northern England.
Now passed into law following royal assent from King Charles III, the legislation grants Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds the authority to oversee the plant’s operations, ensure its 3,000 workers continue to receive wages, and order essential raw materials needed to keep the furnaces operational.
Jingye has argued that the Scunthorpe facility is losing £700,000 daily due to tough market conditions and rising environmental costs. The financial pressure has been worsened by a 25% tariff on imported steel imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Following the bill’s approval, Starmer visited Scunthorpe to meet workers who welcomed the government’s intervention in preserving a steelmaking tradition that dates back 150 years. “You and your colleagues for years have been the backbone of British Steel,” Starmer told workers. “It’s your jobs, your lives, your communities, your families.”
The decision followed Jingye’s cancellation of orders for iron pellets and other essential materials, which risked a permanent shutdown of the furnaces. Once shut down, blast furnaces are costly and difficult to restart, threatening the UK’s ability to produce steel from scratch. Without intervention, Britain would become the only G7 nation without this capability.
Reynolds told Parliament the government would not “stand idly by while heat seeps from the UK’s remaining blast furnaces.” He criticised Jingye’s “excessive” demands and said its actions would have led to the irreversible loss of primary steelmaking.
While the new law does not transfer ownership of the plant to the government, Reynolds acknowledged that nationalisation could be considered in the future.
