Why has British Steel been nationalised?

There are 1,160 businesses in the UK steel industry, directly supporting 40,000 other firms, according to government figures., external

Tata Steel at Port Talbot in Wales was once the UK’s largest virgin steel producer but it turned off its blast furnace in September 2024, saying it was losing £1.7m a day.

An agreement with the UK government was reached which saw it commit £500m to help the company move to greener forms of steelmaking.

Other steelmakers in the UK include Liberty Steel, Celsa, Marcegaglia and Outokumpu.

Liberty Steel also has a plant in Scunthorpe that is facing closure. The government took control of its Speciality Steels UK (SSUK) division in August last year, and agreed to cover the ongoing wages and costs of the plant while a buyer is sought.

In 2024 the UK steel industry contributed £1.7bn to the UK economy – equivalent to 0.1% of total UK economic output and 0.8% of manufacturing output.

The latest figures for 2023 show the UK produced 5.6 million tonnes of crude steel, or 0.3% of the world’s total. In comparison, China produced more than 1,000 million tonnes, 54% of global production.

The EU produced 126 million tonnes of steel in 2023, about 7% of the world’s total. Compared with EU countries, the UK ranked as the eighth largest steel producer, after Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Poland and Belgium.