To think its a no brainer to renationalise British Steel

[feellikeahugefailure]

We need steel, it's just being killed by cheap dumping. Would be foolish to let it go under and not produce any steel in the country.

Also the mistakes with remploy show that it will probably cost more in benefits if the business close. Not to mention more long term affects on mental health from people that can't ever get back into work.

Would decimate the local area, not just the workers but the knock on affect of the workers not spending their money in the local area. One pound earnt could be spent 10 times.

Lord West, former First Sea Lord and Head of the Navy thinks our own steel making capability is essential for defence

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35931128

Javid, the Business Secretary says not

I'm inclined to believe the Defence Expert who has secured his ennoblement is speaking the truth

It could be a plausible position that steel making is a critical part of national infrastructure, however we no longer mine any iron ore or coking coal, which means all the raw material needs importing. We cannot be self-sufficient in steel without imports.
If we can import the raw materials, we can import steel. If we cannot import steel, we cannot make our own.

Or is the ability to generate our own power still part of our critical national infrastructure?

If by their actions (I know it's so unfair on them. If only we could judge them on what they say they've done), then no. It's not.

If the govt decides that generating our own power should be part of our critical national infrastructure then they may want to push fracking (even more)

Carol, good point

If we can import the raw materials, we can import steel. If we cannot import steel, we cannot make our own.

Except that raw materials finished steel.

This argument really doesn't fly - and it's not all or nothing in any case - except that closing down our remaining steelworks would mean zero production here. We import steel now. If we keep the steelworks open, we still will.

Spring

I thought Lord West put the case very well (but then I would as I agree with him).

No country works on a war footing all the time. If we went to war setting up the infrastructure for production of steel would be fairly fast, simple and far more cost effective than keeping a huge operation going on the off chance we need it.

The issue is China demand grew rapidly over the past 10-20 years, so producers increased capacity. There is now a little slow-down and the least efficient producer capacity will be closed.

No, the most expensive producer in a rigged market will be closed. The Chinese aren't more efficient, they have lower labour costs, and massively lower environmental costs since they ignore all that. Then the distorted market makes it "cheaper" to ship their subsidised steel half way around the world on ships belching out carbon and particulate emissions, whilst we are trying to be the good guys to the planet and get to shut down our plants - it's stupidity.

No country works on a war footing all the time.
North Korea and the USA are pretty good at it, to name a couple.

If we went to war setting up the infrastructure for production of steel would be fairly fast, simple

As Lord West pointed out - in wartime you can't rely on stuff - he cited the Belgian who were for some reason supplying us with munitions at the outbreak of the Falklands and who stopped immediately as they didn't agree with our war.

wason

Where is the iron ore and coking coal in your war situation? Ditto food, oil and many other things we are not self-sufficient in.
Also, they will not close all the steel plants, many are still profitable, making high quality specialist steels, just not high volume low quality stuff.

Yes, and in North Korea they have all those lovely poverty stricken peasants, famines and no welfare state. The US more accurately works on the footing of an imperialist rather than all out war.

We simply can't operate on the footing of constant hyper readiness for war. Particularly if that would mean starting a war with a treasury already impoverished by years spent in readiness for wars which didn't happen. It would be counter productive.

BillSykesDog I didn't say I approved of the North Korean regime - but you said no country was on a war footing - and I don't agree with your analysis on the USA btw.

Carol You're right about Iron Ore of course - but raw materials aren't the same as finished stuff, and if we could revive Iron Ore extraction (which we presumably shut down because it's "cheaper" to ship it from somewhere else), it would be pointless if we had no capability to produce anything.

How do think it would be relatively simple to set a steel industry back up again bill?

No, the most expensive producer in a rigged market will be closed

I see you have a grasp on globalisation then, China's glut is due to the downturn and potential shit show that is happening there, there are other countries waiting in the wings to take over China's mantel if they decide to risk civil unrest by making potentially millions redundant, your also ignoring the fact that it's already cheaper to buy some steel from within the EU due to business rates and more economic plants, when the Tories try and give preferential rates there is crys of boys network etc.

It's quite ironic seeing the argument of war being used, as a lot of the people using this generally are quick to bring up us waiting money on things such as the air craft carriers and trident, plus modern war fare requires a lot more than steel, most of which we don't have any capability of digging out of our ground so we still need imports.

There could be a case for a protected institution, but as I said previously it would need a massive overhaul that wouldn't need ~60% of the current jobless and that's not including all the related businesses attached to steel works, that's a big one that seems to be ignored.

If you have the raw materials and the power setting up steel production is not an expensive or complicated process particularly. Which is part of the reason so many countries responded to China's demands in the first place! We didn't do this sort of steel production here anymore if you go back 10 years, the demand stepped up from China and it was started again with relative ease. We've already done it once just in response to commercial demands, not war!

It would be an awful lot cheaper than keeping lots of redundant steel works going anyway.

Is the argument "China* is in charge - live with it" then? Whatever we do is a waste of time/money because we have to let the rest of the world shaft us?

*Insert name of other countries here as required.

Aren't we just waving a white flag and saying "shaft us first, we're scum, we deserve it?"

I really don't get the race to the bottom mentality in this Country sometimes - it appears some folk will only be happy when we have Chinese wages, conditions and environmental standards - and then only so they can say "told you so - it's globalisation that is".

It would need new blast furnaces though for any scale of production.

wasonthelist, but that's generally the attitude that we have towards other countries. Don't forget that a lot of the worldwide 2008 crash was caused by dodgy financial practices in Western countries and our economic downturn had an impact on other countries which imported/exported to us.

And other industries are benefiting from cheap steel, construction for one, wages there have bee improving a lot.

We can't really expect that we should benefit from other countries in their boom periods but not be affected when they go bust. It doesn't work like that for other countries when we go boom or bust either.

We scaled up production/built new blast furnaces/recommissioned old ones fast enough to meet the Chinese demand when there was money in it!

If it weren't for the human misery and economic damage that is at stake, this story would have massive comic potential.

It's managed to get the Daily Mail agitating for nationalisation.

From what I understand the factory at port talbot uses quite old technology processes to make the steel, and therefore it's steel is not only expensive but also poorer quality than a lot of imported stuff. Where factories in China have e.g. the very latest sophisticated processes they can produce purer, better engineered steel components for a lower price.

Port talbot would need to find a way to produce a differentiated product. Either redevelop it's processes to be better at creating pure, strong steel vs China, or focus on finishing the steel components to an increased degree of sophistication I.e. specialist parts for quick assembly.

Btw the defence industry is no safety net - they're moving towards carbon based composite materials (lighter, stronger) for aircraft. I would pin national long term hopes on ship building...

Sorry WOULDNT pin hopes on ship building that should have said

They are not factories
They are plants.
Huge scale.

Other nationalized industries made so much profit in the past and made such cheap and wonderful products, I don't know why we don't re-nationalize everything.
Oh to live back in the 70s

This +1. Who on earth would want to go back to crap products and union fuckwittery all at great cost to the taxpayer?