YP Letters: Cameron's refusal to stand up to Chinese at root of steel crisis

Business Secretary Sajid Javid arrives for a meeting with Tata chairman Cyrus Mistry at the Bombay House, the Tata group's headquarters, in Mumbai, India.

BILL Carmichael (The Yorkshire Post, April 1) was wrong to blame the demise of the British steel industry on green policies and the EU. Not one of your correspondents mentions that the UK government has decided not to use an EU veto against Chinese steel and the Chinese has massively dumped steel on the market. This is the same David Cameron who has done deals with the Chinese on nuclear and wants Chinese investment in the Northern Powerhouse.

Could we have a sense of balance, please?

From: Don Alexander, Knab Road, Sheffield.

THE huge melting shop at Aldwarke (Tata), like the remaining Sheffield shops at Brightside (Sheffield Forgemasters) and Shepcote Lane (Outukumpu Stainless), produce special steels by locally arising selected scrap, mainly from 2,000 engineering companies in the region.

Traditionally these plants, plus the Stocksbridge works, which produces ultra-special remelted steels and alloys for aerospace, defence etc. have been the jewel in the crown of British steelmaking: top quality, profitable.

Melting is in electric arc furnaces, since only this process can give precise control over the composition of the steels. Recycling counts for nothing though, the Government rewards the firm with excessive taxes, especially the ludicrous, holier than thou, green energy taxes. I can foresee demand for these Tata plants despite all this. Let’s hope and pray there are local buyers after so many years under the yoke of nationalisation, then of foreign ownership.

From: DS Boyes, Leeds.

WHEN are the real culprits for the destruction of the UK steel industry going to confess to their collective guilt? These are not the Chinese but Tony Blair’s  New Labour government and then Ed Miliband who passed  the 2008 Climate Change Bill –  fully supported by the Conservative opposition headed by David Cameron – which introduced mandatory carbon reductions.

Add to this the crazy EU rules which forbid our own Government from giving preference to UK steel for major infrastructure projects, and that is why we have thousands of former miners and steel workers unemployed.