Business secretary says all would have been lost without emergency legislation to save British Steel – UK politics live

Jonathan Reynolds says parliament’s intervention was ‘dramatic’ but needed to secure Britain’s ‘economic security’ by keeping Scunthorpe plant runningReynolds has also been speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning programme with Trevor Phillips. He has been asked how much it may cost the taxpayer if the government takes ownership and control of British Steel.Reynolds said the government expects to lose money running British Steel, but allowing it to collapse would have cost £1bn. There still has been no confirmation of plans to nationalise the plant in Scunthorpe but public ownership is looking increasingly likely.The losses, the annual losses, net losses, in the last set of accounts were £233m. Actually, that can be improved upon, but I am accepting your point that we would expect to lose money on this.I would ask the public to compare that to the option of spending a lot more money to reach a deal that would have seen a lot of job losses and Jingye remain as a partner.Because I don’t think in any job, in any role in government, you take emergency powers of the scale that happened yesterday until you have that emergency situation.We have been negotiating in good faith. We have been expecting, as I think is reasonable, an economically rational partner on the other side. Continue reading...

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