London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Shapps steps up talks with British Steel-owner as job cuts loom

Shapps steps up talks with British Steel-owner as job cuts loom

Grant Shapps, the business secretary, met senior Jingye Group executives on Wednesday to discuss its request for hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer funding.

Grant Shapps, the business secretary, has held a further round of talks with the Chinese owner of British Steel as the spectre of redundancies looms over one of the UK's biggest industrial manufacturers.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Shapps met top executives from Jingye Group on Wednesday to discuss its request for state aid to help decarbonise Britain's second-largest steel producer.

It comes little more than a month since the newly appointed business secretary met Jingye chiefs amid suggestions that the Chinese group wants roughly £500m of taxpayer aid to avert the threat of blast furnace closures and mass redundancies at British Steel's Scunthorpe base.

Jingye, which took control of an insolvent British Steel in 2020, has in recent months begun making preparations for the permanent closure one of the plant's two blast furnaces.

Such a move would entail as many as 2,000 redundancies at the company, dealing a blow to Britain's industrial manufacturing capability and the local economy.

Mr Shapps' predecessor, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who lasted just weeks as business secretary under Ms Truss, opened formal talks with Jingye in October about the provision of governmentfunding to help British Steel decarbonise.

One of the pre-conditions set by Whitehall for the talks was that Jingye would not cut jobs at British Steel while the discussions were ongoing.

Tata Steel, which is the biggest player in the UK steel sector, has also requested financial help from the government.

British Steel employs about 4,000 people, with thousands more jobs in its supply chain dependent upon the company.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) declined to comment, while British Steel has previously said: "We are continuing formal talks with the UK Government to help us overcome the global challenges we currently face.

"The government understands the significant impact the economic slowdown, rising inflation and exceptionally high energy and carbon prices are having on businesses like ours and we look forward to working together to build a sustainable future."



Industrial consumers of energy have complained this year that soaring prices are imperilling their ability to continue operating.

The request for financial support from Jingye poses a political headache for ministers, given the scale of the potential job losses which might result from a refusal to provide taxpayer aid.

An agreement to provide substantial taxpayer funding to a Chinese-owned business, however, would inevitably provoke outrage among Tory critics of Beijing.

China's role in global steel production, after years of international trade rows about dumping, would make any subsidies even more contentious.

In May 2019, the Official Receiver was appointed to take control of the company after negotiations over an emergency £30m government loan fell apart.

British Steel had been formed in 2016 when India's Tata Steel sold the business for £1 to Greybull Capital, an investment firm.

As part of the deal that secured ownership of British Steel for Jingye, the Chinese group said it would invest £1.2bn in modernising the business during the following decade.

The Telegraph recently reported that only a fraction of that promised commitment had materialised.

Jingye's purchase of the company, which completed in the spring of 2020, was hailed by Boris Johnson, the then prime minister, as assuring the future of steel production in Britain's industrial heartlands.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×