Chris Mason: British Steel law rushed through Parliament but it is just a stop gap

Chris Mason: British Steel law rushed through Parliament but it is just a stop gap:

There was a moment where all they could do was wait.

Government officials were holed up in a Premier Inn down the road from British Steel’s steelworks in Scunthorpe and parliament’s work to change the law to allow them to take control of the Chinese-owned company was complete.

But they couldn’t move yet.

All they could do – along with all the politicians 200 miles south in Westminster – was wait.

They were waiting for Royal Assent, the formality in the legislative process when the King formally agrees to make a bill an act of parliament, and so the law.

Not that this was snail’s pace law-making, far from it.

This was a legislative sprint, the timeline from First Reading to Royal Assent measured in hours, not the months it would normally take.

That moment of Royal Assent happened at around 18:00 on Saturday night and with that those officials could head into the plant.

The emergency legislation was rushed through Parliament in a single day.

・UK takes control of British Steel under emergency powers
・Why did the government take control of British Steel?
・We want our steel back, say Scunthorpe’s workers

There were concerns in government about the prospect of unrest.

A new management structure has been put in place, with the professional services firm EY having been hired by the government to assist with this.

There is an optimism among ministers that with the law changed they can secure the necessary raw materials to keep the two working blast furnaces in Scunthorpe doing just that – working.

Jingye had been seeking to sell off to other buyers raw materials already en route to Lincolnshire, which is what convinced the government it had to act and act quickly.

Others, not least the Conservatives, wonder if it really did need to be so last minute and whether some of these problems could have been anticipated much sooner.

And some within the industry say the moment of jeopardy has not yet passed.

Why is British Steel in trouble and who owns it?

Securing the necessary materials to keep blast furnaces up and running isn’t like ordering something online via click and collect – these are highly complex international supply chains with long time lags and at a time of trading turmoil with President Trump’s tariffs.

And remember all of this, for all of the Westminster drama of a weekend sitting, is just a stop gap.

Nationalisation, the government taking on full ownership of British Steel, looks increasingly likely.

If the Chinese parent company don’t quibble with this desire, if it comes about, it could happen without further legislation.

But if they did, another new law would be needed.

The prime minister has described leading what he claims is a “government of industry”.

He emailed Labour Party supporters on Saturday night about the new law, and the subject line was “British Steel. British jobs”.

Another case study, reckon some who know the Prime Minister’s mind, of an instinct for a sliver of economic nativism.

A muscular government intervention in an era dominated by President Trump’s guiding principle of “America First”.

There are big questions and big numbers attached to this path – and so potentially big budgetary implications too down the track.

Those officials in Scunthorpe won’t have to hang around in their hotel rooms any longer.

But they have plenty to do.