Ministers are urging the chancellor to provide £300m of taxpayers' money to avert the closure of British Steel’s two blast furnaces – a move that would trigger the loss of thousands of industrial jobs in northern England
The letter to Mr Hunt warned that British Steel"does not have a viable business without government support"."Closing one blast furnace would be a stepping-stone to closure of the second blast furnace, resulting in a highly unstable business model dependent on Chinese steel imports," Mr Shapps and Mr Gove wrote.
According to the letter to Mr Hunt, British Steel has already informed the government that it could close one of the Scunthorpe blast furnaces as soon as next month, with the loss of 1,700 jobs. One of the pre-conditions set by Whitehall for the discussions was that Jingye would not cut jobs at British Steel while the discussions were ongoing, although the recent letter to Mr Hunt said that ministers"cannot guarantee the company will choose to support jobs in the short term".
"This is in addition to extensive support we have provided to the steel sector as a whole to help with energy costs, worth more than £800m since 2013."