The Steel Industry (Special Measures) has now passed through the House of Lords and is awaiting royal assent
It’s been a busy morning for Sarah Jones, who is now on BBC Breakfast.
Asked whether the government had received any private offers for the company’s Scunthorpe plant, Sarah Jones said:
There is not at the moment, to answer your question, a private company that is there willing to invest at this point.
When we came into government, there was a deal on the table with Tata Steel in Port Talbot.
We negotiated in 10 weeks a much better deal, but there was a private company willing to invest, who are now investing.
We are hoping that the company will co-operate with what we are asking them to do, we hope that we will give them a notice and they will continue.
If they do not, we will step in. Now the company will be liable for any costs that we incur, and we will seek to get that money back.
We have the £2.5 billion fund for steel which we had in our manifesto, that we will use if necessary, so there will be no extra costs to the Exchequer that we don’t already have in our plans.
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