Richard Tice has demanded that net zero be scrapped to make a “great success” of British Steel. The Reform UK deputy leader’s comments come after the company was taken over by the Government in a bid to avoid the closure of the UK’s last primary steelmaking plant.
There is now a race against time to ensure British Steel has enough raw materials to keep the two blast furnaces at its Scunthorpe plant burning. Mr Tice told LBC: “We need to scrap net stupid zero, get our energy costs down, scrap the ridiculous carbon taxes and have a long-term procurement contract for the input costs and the products that produce the brilliant products they steal.
“That’s how you create a viable business. We can make a great success of it.”
Without coking coal and iron ore, the blast furnaces will cool, which risks irreparable damage to the two blast furnaces.
On Monday, Treasury minister James Murray said government officials are trying to get raw materials to the Scunthorpe steelworks.
He confirmed the materials needed at the British Steel works were in the UK and that government staff had been at the plant in North Lincolnshire since Saturday.
Speaking to Times Radio, Mr Murray said: “Their role is to make sure we do everything we can to make sure we get those raw materials to the blast furnaces in time and to make sure they continue operating.”
He refused to guarantee that the furnaces would continue running, claiming the plant’s Chinese owners, Jingye, had “accelerated” the shutdown of one furnace.
Mr Murray said: “The raw materials, the shipments have arrived, they’re in the UK, they’re nearby. There were questions about getting them into the blast furnaces, that is what the officials are focused on right now.
“We know that the Government needed to do everything possible on Saturday to protect the future of steelmaking in the UK.
“We’re not just going to step aside and let the industry fail with the blast furnaces closing. We’ve been negotiating in good faith with Jingye but when it became clear they were accelerating the plans to close the blast furnaces, we had to step in.”