Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what contingency measures his Department has should negotiations with Jingye on the future of steel blast furnaces collapse.

The Government is in negotiations with British Steel’s shareholder regarding the company’s commercial plans to transition to productive and efficient methods of steel production.

As with any responsible Government, we continue to consider all possible outcomes, and we stand ready to support local workers and local communities as needed.

The steel industry declined more than 50% in the last decade because there was no strategy to protect and grow this strategically important sector. We are developing a Steel Strategy which we will publish in Spring 2025, and we have committed up to £2.5bn of investment to rebuild the UK steel industry.