Jonathan Reynolds Refuses to Rule Out Job Losses at British Steel – Guido Fawkes

Jonathan Reynolds Refuses to Rule Out Job Losses at British Steel

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Coking coal and iron from the US are being moved to Scunthorpe from the port at Immingham as we speak to keep the fires burning at British Steel’s plant. Shipments, including from Sweden and Australia, were to be ditched by Jingye prior to the state takeover of operations…

After industry minister Sarah Jones refused to rule out another Chinese firm taking over British Steel business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has refused to rule out job losses. When pressed by reporters this afternoon on whether he could guarantee there’d be no job losses, Reynolds said:

“What we need for the long term future of British Steel is that private sector partner…that might have a different employment footprint. What [staff] didn’t want was the unplanned, uncontrolled shutdown of the blast furnaces, with thousands of job losses and no plan in place for the future. And by what we have been able to do… is secure the possibility of that better future.” 

Seeing as the plant at Scunthorpe is losing £700,000 a day and employs 2,700 workers, each retained job costs the average tax contributions of eight brits to sustain. Co-conspirators will recall the self-congratulatory fanfare from Labour MPs who boasted about working on a Saturday to “save British jobs”. The political theatre may not have been enough for a full rescue mission…