Tory mayor warns of Labour plan to replace British steel with imports from China

One of Britain's leading regional mayors claimed Sir Keir Starmer's government is preparing to abandon British-produced steel altogether and replace it with Chinese steel diverted through Brazil.

- DAVID MADDOX

Lord Ben Houchen, the Conservative Party mayor of the Tees Valley, raised the concern in an interview with The Independent

after thousands of jobs were lost at the Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales when blast furnaces were closed down.

But Lord Houchen’s biggest fear is the steelworks in Scunthorpe in the North East which he believes there is a secret deal to shut down and supply steel from Brazil instead. Worse still, he claims the agreement will make it look like the steel comes from South America, but is really being produced in China.

The Scunthorpe steelworks has a Chinese owner, Jingye. It currently is part of a £1.25bn decarbonisation plan, which could lead to 2,000 redundancies according to unions, with a total of 4,000 employed in steelworks in the Lincolnshire town.

Lord Houchen claims Labour has broken its promises to steelworkers. The Tees Valley mayor has secured £4bn funding for a new net zero green energy project at the former steelworks site in Redcar. He had been accused but cleared of “corruption and cronyism” over the project by Labour, which is now backing the project. But Lord Houchen has not held back on his criticism of Labour’s treatment of the last remaining steelworks in England.