Britain must not lose the ability to produce primary steel

The Government has offered to buy the coking coal needed to keep production going at British Steel’s Scunthorpe works where the blast furnaces face being shut down by the Chinese owners.

There are a number of ironies in that sentence. What is left of one of our most important strategic industries is effectively controlled by a totalitarian state. Coking coal that could be produced in Britain needs to be imported because permission to open a new domestic mine was refused.

The Chinese owners Jingye said at least one of the two blast furnaces would have to shut down because of a shortage of coal and iron ore, which can take weeks to access from overseas.

This story encapsulates the sheer madness of modern British industrial strategy hamstrung as it is by the pursuit of unfeasible green targets.

The coal would be available had a proposed pit in Cumbria been given the go-ahead. Developers argued it would not lead to a net increase in carbon emissions from combustion because it would substitute coal that would otherwise be imported.

But it was blocked as part of a move to shut every mine in the country, even though it is needed for steel-making. The idea that so-called “green” steel produced by electric arc furnaces is sufficient fails to recognise that some products require primary steel-making. Energy prices in this country are so high they undermine competitiveness.

The offer to buy the coal for Jingye comes as talks continue over the future of the plant. If the furnaces close Britain will be left without a primary steel-making capacity for the first time since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. That cannot be allowed to happen.