Can UK afford to save British Steel – and can it afford not to?

“Who was going to blink first?”
A source involved in the fraught negotiations since the election over the future of British Steel told me that as time passed, and literally, coal to keep the furnaces burning started to run out, that was the question – was the government going to offer even more to the Chinese owners of British Steel, Jingye, or act itself?
On Saturday, the government is changing the law to answer that question.
Unless something truly weird happens, Parliament will vote to give Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, the power to tell British Steel what to do – in practice, buying coal to keep the fires burning, to keep the once mighty steel industry alive.
Even on Thursday he was offering taxpayers’ cash to buy the raw materials to keep the furnaces alive as a sweetener for Jingye.

Source: BBC | Language: English