British Steel: Nationalisation

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

With British Steel, we needed to take action to stabilise operations, and it has needed some time to get to that position. The next stage has been appointing the new board and asking it to chart a transformation plan, the answers to which will help us attract new private sector investment and be able to answer the questions about the future public funding that will be needed to support that transformation plan.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Government’s steel strategy not have a better chance at success if government, as a customer, was buying British steel for rail, bridges, ships, buses and cars? Should we not be prioritising that to support the British steel industry and British steel-workers?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to highlight the importance of the UK public sector as a consumer. That is why we have changed procurement guidance to ensure that UK-made steel is regularly considered in public projects and added new transparency requirements on the origin of steel in public procurement contracts.