Labour leader, Keir Starmer along with Shadow Councillor, Rachel Reeves, visited Sheffield’s Outokumpu Stainless Ltd last week to plead with the Conservative government for intervention.
The MP said: “If we have short term energy prices leading to long term job losses that is unforgivable for the government. So stop squabbling, get back to work and talk to the sector about the support that’s needed for jobs in places like this across Yorkshire and other places. Very important jobs in a very important sector of steel.”
Normally, Outokumpu produces a quarter of a million tonnes of metal every year.
Last year, however, the Finnish owned company was in danger of total reconstruction just to remain open, meaning 500 jobs were threatened to be lost. This threat still remains.
Whilst visiting, Starmer also backed the trending movement of #Britainweneedoursteel to support the pledge for funding the struggling industry.
The National Officer for Steel, Alun Davies, said “It does seem like another nail in the coffin and that’s why we are trying to push the government now to try and do something.
We’ve been asking for years through the ‘Britain We Need our Steel’ campaign, looking for cuts to energy prices, just to compete on a level playing field. But if the government does not act, we will end up collapsing.”
The Chancellor of the Conservative Party, Rishi Sunak, does not believe the top priority for the government is the steel industry at this current moment, but said they were still listening to the industry’s concerns.
Sunak said “We’re always in dialogue with businesses to understand some of the challenges they are facing, to examine solutions that people put towards us.
But when it comes to these types of things I’ve been consistent actually all the way through the crisis that my firm desire is to make sure that taxpayers’ money is always protected. And that should always be uppermost in our minds”.
The main reason for Starmer’s visit to Sheffield was to provide consistency to Labour’s pledge for government intervention financially for the industry. However the Conservative Party do not feel that supporting this industry will best benefit the public in terms of taxes.
This energy crisis is at a global level, with prices in Europe reaching a 200% increase since January 2021. The UK specifically has felt this hike.
