Should the government do more to help the steel industry or....

umm where have you all been for the past 25+ years....

Britain has been hollowed and sold off/out by successive governments, industry by industry.
I'm surprised there was any steel producers left at all by now.
I dunno what the Uk/most of the West would actually do if there was a "war" or emergency type situation where we were up against China..
 
the UK has not been sold off or sold short but it may seem like that. The UK has gone for a different outlook and economic prosperity now comes from a different vision much like it does in other countries as well. When you look at why we bailed out the banks and probably not Tata Steel in south wales says it all. We could say why is cheaper steel being purchased across the world at our expense, if it is such a big deal then where is loyalty to UK steel on certain projects etc but there is not much loyalty around these days and cheap wins out.

I am sure that some people here will see it as ideological that we should save our manufacturing industries regardless of the world economic situation but our predominantly service sector based economy seems to take precedence now.
 
Selling up an invaluable resource to an unpredictable foreign power with a very large army- can't see how this could possibly go wrong :p
 
SW-L chimed in yesterday. Some useful links within.

If this is correct, then this story is not about neoliberalism or the free market, but a story of a rigged market. To put it another way, it is a market where one set of producers have the ability to eliminate their competitors by flooding the market at a loss because they have the ‘deep pockets’ of a state behind them.

The EU have been trying to raise tariffs against Chinese steel producers for three years, but have been blocked by a coalition of countries led by the UK. The UK Business minister Sajid Javid has been quite explicit about this: he prefers cheap steel because it helps other parts of UK industry. It may also have something to do with wanting to curry favour with China because of other matters (which was the point of John McDonnell’s Little Red Book stunt, if only he hadn’t started reading from it!). This is not Javid upholding the principles of a free market, but instead allowing a large state to rig a market. The irony in this case is that the state in question is not the one he works for.
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http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-big-story-behind-port-talbot.html
 
China now imposing a tarrif on a type of steel made in Wales. I know we are not the world force we used to be but DC is sure making us look an island nation bending over to our Chinese overlords.
 
In many ways I'm happy to see smelly, dirty industry get shipped out to China, but also I'm a bit concerned at their merchantilist nature.

We should just screw the Chinese over by continuing to pay them for stuff at knock down prices with debased sterling.
 
DC, king of kicking the can down the road. He just folds like a five pound note every time the thought of effort comes along. Say what you want about people like Trump, Thatcher, etc etc - they love their country and aren't afraid to tell others where to stick it.


(before the usual suspects hop on the OMG U LUV TRUMP LOL bandwagon, I don't, in fact I think he's a grade A idiot but it is refreshing to have someone in politics who's arse isn't split in half from fence sitting.)
 
agnes said:
Not read through the thread, but it's a dead industry. Why are we trying to save something that makes no profit?

Move on.
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The exact same could be said about most of British agriculture - it makes no profits, losses infact and only exists thanks to subsidies.

I think it's a reasonable question to ask why we subside loss making agriculture an not loss making steel?
 
you can't eat steel

but i do believe the government should do something to help the steel industry the same way they help the banks
 
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Seriously, are asking why we subsidise agriculture?

Well, why stop there, why don't we just subsidise everything that makes a loss?
 
Btone said:
you can't eat steel

but i do believe the government should do something to help the steel industry the same way they help the banks
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I think you and clv101 are in agreement. "We subsidise food because we need it, steel is sufficiently important to deserve similar treatment" might be his reasoning.
 
It would appear that the UK uses about 10m tonnes every year and the mills produce enough to cover that... but that's a stupid idea when the government has no money to deal with this in our short-termist world.

The market has decided that Chinese steel is good enough and that's the end of it.
 
I'm my eyes..

You can't cherry pick certain industries to save.
It's a natural evolution of the result of our position in the world with energy costs, labour costs etc.

What's the point in propping it up? I really can't see one.
You are also then valuing these people more than others who have lost their jobs

I expect the subsidies would also have to increase over time.

As unfortunate as it is, it simply isn't possible to save everyone's job like this.

No, it shouldn't be saved with public money
 
Just by buying British steel, it doesn't mean anyone will be buying at a significantly higher price.

Most British steel does end up being used in the UK.

The private sector won't be buying at a higher price than the market rate, and unless steel companies have one price for them and another for the public sector, it will make little difference. Most steel demand I'd have thought is from the former as well.
 
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Rosbif said:
Seriously, are asking why we subsidise agriculture?

Well, why stop there, why don't we just subsidise everything that makes a loss?
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Because the global commodity argument fails.

It presumes that there is always a magic shop out there that we can always go to to get stuff when ever we want it (And that we will always have the money to buy at whatever price the global goods are selling for)

This is not going to be the case. What is more. Agriculture and Heavy industries like Mining, Steel, shipbuilding (And indeed Nuclear construction) are not things that can be shut down because the global price is low and suddenly started up again in ten years time when the "Current Economic Situation" has changed.

These industries take skill and knowledge. Skills and knowledge that can not be easily got by reading a book or going to collage. They need to be passed on from one person to the next. If the chain is broken the knowledge will be lost and very quickly too.

Take coal for instance, we currently import 3/4 of the coal coinsumed in the UK. This is despite sitting on reserves of billions of tons. But that deep coal might as well be on the Moon. It would be almost impossible to start up significant deep mining in the UK because there is nobody left who knows how to do it.

We are having to Kow-Tow to the Chinese (See what I did there) and the French because we shut down our Nuclear industry post Sizewell and nobody knows how to do it any more.

The QM2 was built in France because nobody here can do it any more.

(The most astonishing thing to me about the new Carriers (Elizabeth class) is that we are able to build them at all)

An industrialised country that cannot make steel is like a farmer who cannot grow food!

Can you see Germany, or even France allowing their steel industry to be lost for ever because of "Current Economic Circumstances".

Only in Britain as they say! :(
 
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