Keir Starmer promised legislation on Monday to nationalise British Steel, putting the Scunthorpe plant on a path back into public hands after years of unstable ownership. Full nationalisation was expected to be part of Wednesday’s king’s speech, a rare step that would formalise the government’s takeover drive.
The move comes 13 months after ministers recalled parliament for a historic Saturday sitting to pass legislation giving the state control of the steelworks, while Jingye Steel remained the nominal owner. Starmer framed the case in blunt national terms, saying strong nations in a world like this need to make steel.
The decision is rooted in a plant with a history that mirrors the wider rise and fall of British steel. The first iron ore was discovered in Scunthorpe in 1859 by a local landowner, and Britain’s steel industry went on to become the largest in the world in the late 19th century. But the industry was nationalised in 1951, privatised two years later, nationalised again in 1967 and privatised again in 1988. UK steel production peaked in the 1970s, and the Scunthorpe works changed hands repeatedly after that, passing to Tata Steel in 2007, then to Greybull Capital in 2016 for £1, before Greybull walked away in 2019 and the Conservative government brokered a takeover by Jingye.
Britain’s remaining blast furnaces at Scunthorpe are now at the center of the dispute. Two of them were first built in 1938, the second pair in 1954, and industry consensus is that the two still operating have reached the end of their life. Jingye was unable to turn a profit at British Steel and, according to accounts up to the end of 2023, the company lost a cumulative £350m under its ownership. Last year Jingye threatened to walk away and leave the furnaces to fall into disrepair, a prospect the Labour government was unwilling to accept because it would have meant 2,700 job losses.
That is why the nationalisation plan is about more than ownership. The government says it needs to preserve primary steelmaking, the ability to produce steel from iron ore, not just keep the site open in name. The immediate question now is not whether the state can intervene again, but how far Starmer is prepared to go to keep Scunthorpe making steel after decades in which each private rescue has ended the same way.
