'Nationalisation in all but name': the blame game over British Steel

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Parliament was recalled from Easter recess for a rare Saturday sitting of Parliament yesterday, to debate the future of British Steel. Legislation was passed to allow the government to take control of the Chinese-owned company – Conservative MP David Davis called this 'nationalisation in all but name'. Though, with broad support across the House including from Reform leader Nigel Farage, the debate centred less around the cure and more around the cause.

Katy Balls and James Heale join Patrick Gibbons to discuss the debate, the political reaction and how much of a precedent this sets for Starmer.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews.
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0:15.0	Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.
0:30.5	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.
0:33.7	I'm Patrick Givens and today I'm joined by Katie Balls and James Hill.
0:38.2	The future British Steel was up for debate yesterday as MPs were recalled during their Easter recess to discuss taking control of the Chinese own company. Here's a clip of the business
0:42.9	secretary Jonathan Reynolds opening the debate in Parliament. Our request to recall Parliament
0:48.9	was not one we have made lightly. And I am grateful, genuinely grateful, to honourable members on all sides of
0:57.6	this House for their cooperation and for being here today as we seek to pass emergency legislation
1:02.8	that is unequivocally in our national interest. James, can you take us through what happened
1:08.7	and why the government felt this was necessary? Sure. Well, this was an emergency debate. The first time that there's been a recall of Parliament on a Saturday for a sitting since the Fultons War 43 years ago.
1:18.6	And really, it was a matter of expediency and the necessity to have this debate because there was some concern that the Chinese owners of the scumthorpe steel works were going to shut off
1:27.6	the blast furnaces, given the prohibitive costs of then restarting those blast furnaces,
1:31.8	ministers felt there was the need to kind of step in right now, save the company, take direct action one step below,
1:38.0	full nationalisation, and therefore keep the blast furnaces going. And so what we had yesterday was
1:43.1	a rare sight of having almost
1:44.7	sort of COVID 2.0, where both sides of parliament sat to rush through emergency laws, ran them through,
1:49.9	and we had five hours of debates in the commons, similar length than the lords. I believe I was watched
1:53.4	the five hours in the commons. There were not a single speech explicitly against nationalisation,
1:58.1	or thereabouts, nationalisation and allbert name, and in the laws there
2:01.2	were only two speeches, one of which was Daniel Hannan against it. And I think therefore,
	...

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