Should the Government save the British Steel Industry?
The UK steel industry has been thrown into its biggest crisis for a generation after Tata Steel announced it was pulling out of the country, putting at least 15,000 jobs at risk.
Britain currently manufacturers about 12 million tons of steel per annum as against the Chinese who manufacture half the worlds steel at a staggering 770 million tons last year. As the Chinese economy has slowed down so they have started exporting considerably more cheap steel making the steel produced by Tata in the UK uneconomic to produce and the company is loosing £1m a day. Other countries have imposed tariffs on Chinese steel with the USA imposing a 256% “anti-dumping duty” on it to protect their internal producers.
Tata Steel are apparently seeking buyers, which seems a remote possibility. Steel has been produced in the UK since 1850 and many people in communities like Port Talbot and Scunthorpe rely on the steel industry for jobs and their living. There have been calls for the government to step in and nationalise the industry as steel is seen by many as a strategic industry. The loss of the steel production would obviously harm communities like Port Talbot.
Others say that this will cost the government too much and this is just another UK heavy industry, like coal, that has been in decline for many years.
What’s your view? Should the government step in an Nationalise or support the British steel industry if no buyers are found by Tata Steel. Or with globalisation should we bow to the inevitable and focus on other industries Britain can compete in?
What are your views?
We'd love to hear your comments
Log in to comment
You need to be logged in to interact with Silversurfers. Please use the button below if you already have an account.
LoginNot a member?
You need to be a member to interact with Silversurfers. Joining is free and simple to do. Click the button below to join today!
JoinCommunity Terms & Conditions
Content standards
These content standards apply to any and all material which you contribute to our site (contributions), and to any interactive services associated with it.
You must comply with the spirit of the following standards as well as the letter. The standards apply to each part of any contribution as well as to its whole.
Contributions must:
be accurate (where they state facts); be genuinely held (where they state opinions); and comply with applicable law in the UK and in any country from which they are posted.
Contributions must not:
contain any material which is defamatory of any person; or contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory; or promote sexually explicit material; or promote violence; promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age; or infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person; or be likely to deceive any person; or be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence; or promote any illegal activity; or be threatening, abuse or invade another’s privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety; or be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person; or be used to impersonate any person, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person; or give the impression that they emanate from us, if this is not the case; or advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.
Nurturing a safe environment
Our Silversurfers community is designed to foster friendships, based on trust, honesty, integrity and loyalty and is underpinned by these values.
We don't tolerate swearing, and reserve the right to remove any posts which we feel may offend others... let's keep it friendly!
hard working people being out of jobs to impose a massive tax on their steel! So now they have us "by the shorts". Britain should step up the steel industry big time and give them the "two finger" salute - similarly I believe we should re-constitute out manufacturing of everything in this country and put the Great back into Great Britain again.
Our erstwhile press has been declaring the world is in a more volatile condition than at any time since the end of the Second World War. No nation truly trusts another. The West, with the exception of dear old Blighty, of course, is arming itself to the teeth. War, outright war to the death, could be imminent.
Surely, at such a time, should we Brits not be reclaiming our strategic assets such as steel, power generation, telecoms etc., and holding them, not as satellites of a foreign power, but as our own strategic resources which we will need in the event of a major conflict or financial melt down.
If, for example, civil war breaks out post referendum, as seems possible to me, then shouldn't the State own and have total control over power, food and water supplies and not the Chinese or Germans. Should it not be able to order steel to be produced for our needs? After all, if civil war occurs, it will more than likely be about migrants and their parent nations could well act against Britain and in favour of our new arrivals, the while owning the means of production here.
Please do not think I'm an extremist. I'm not. But I do think there could soon come a time when water will no longer flow from our taps, when supermarket doors are shut, when ATMs are locked down. A time when a foreign power threatens this nation and we have not the means to build the resources to respond. And why,
....because the likes of our steel industry, water, power etc have been sold to foreign powers. The owner of our power systems might just be the threat.
Nationalise the steel industry, all of it, and reclaim our strategic services. We will need then, and it could be soon.
The govt. should invest in the Steel industry, infact in ALL manufacturing, but the truth is they tried to close down most industry in favour of a Banking and Leisure economy at least until that all went t**ts up and had to be saved by the very industries it was trying to ruin, but now we're out of MOST of that banking mess, it would seem the govt, once again, despises these 'working class' industries and is quite happy to see them come to an end.
After all, non of Camarons chronies are going to loose a job over it are they?