Reynolds on 'personal' mission with British steel industry

Public sector buyers would be able to avoid normal requirements to consider overseas bidders and instead give priority to domestic firms.

UK Steel welcomed the proposals, describing them as “unequivocally positive news” that would help safeguard jobs in the industry.

However, speaking to The Yorkshire Post from Leeds, Jonathan Reynolds pushed back on the importance of this, saying: “If you designated it [steel] but didn’t take the kind of decisive action we have taken it would be for nothing.

“It’s a bit more than just a designation, you’ve got to be willing to act, you’ve got to take decisive action.

“The ultimate proof of whether you think the sector is important comes in the decisions you take.”

Mr Reynolds was at Sound Leisure, an independent, internationally-renowned classic jukebox maker in Leeds, to launch the Government’s trade strategy.

The Business Secretary described it as a “wonderful family business … that exports to the rest of the world”, saying: “It’s a tremendous story, something to be really proud of here in Yorkshire.”

He said, in particular, the trade strategy would help protect the steel sector from global threats to free trade.

The Business Secretary said: “We have taken the kind of decisive action on steel, which I think has been lacking for many years.

“Whether it’s some stronger trade defence measures, the action we took at Scunthorpe to save British Steel, whether it’s the support we’ve given to Port Talbot and Tata on the transition, we’re really committed to that.

“We need, as a matter of economic capacity and also national security, our own domestic steel industry, and I think we were in danger of being the first developed country in the world not to have a steel industry.

“I’m very committed to making sure we do have one … it’s personal to make sure we succeed.”

Mr Reynolds also confirmed yesterday that Tata Steel’s operations in Port Talbot do not meet the US “rules of origin” that the UK needs to meet to get exemptions from Donald Trump’s steel tariffs.

“The issue with the implementation of the steel agreement is the melt and pour rules, which is the US interpretation of rules of origin around steel,” he explained.

That applies to Port Talbot, where semi-finished products come into the UK and then go to the mills to keep the business going, but not British Steel in Scunthorpe.

“That doesn’t meet their existing implementation of that in the US,” he said.

“On British Steel, we have to resolve issues of ownership separate to issues around US trade.”

Mr Reynolds said the Scunthorpe plant “comes up in the context of the US is very supportive of what we did” after the UK Government used emergency powers to take control of British Steel.

But he said British Steel’s ownership was something that needed to be resolved “regardless” of the US talks.