Tony Gosling has been a proud steelworker at the British Steel plant in Scunthorpe since 1981.
Mr Gosling, a Community trade union representative at Scunthorpe’s blast furnaces, said that it has been “a very worrying time” since the news broke.
“I’m in a more mature stage of my working life, but it’s devastating for young people who are setting out in life, with their mortgages, their young families, or plans to have young families.”
There are roughly 4,500 jobs that are directly related to the steel industry, the companies that supply the steelworks and the local businesses that support the workers.
British Steel will effectively taken over by the Government following the vote on Saturday (Photo: Darren Staples/Getty)And it is the community’s identity that is under threat, too. Steelmaking has defined Scunthorpe for 160 years; the town’s identity is etched into steel.
“We’ve supplied steel through two World Wars,” Mr Gosling adds. “Scunthorpe steel has built tanks and ships in the past; we’ve been there at the very cutting edge. And when a lot of the men went off to war, females joined the steel industry to keep it going 24/7 during those periods, and we’ve contributed greatly to the world.”
Roj Rahman, co-owner of the north Lincolnshire town’s football club
“We’ve had many generations of people working there. I know personally three generations working at the same time: grandparents, parents and children. My father came here in the late ’50s and worked in the steelworks for over 30 years. At the end of the day, this is the identity of the people of Scunthorpe.”
“To think now that we’re going to lose one of the biggest plants in the country and in addition 2,700 jobs, the impact is massive. It will cripple us and bring us to our knees.
“We’re living in a time of economic crisis. The government has to intervene. There has to be a subsidy to keep this going or nationalisation. I keep hearing that the steelworks is losing a lot of money – the government spent a lot of money during Covid that could have been spent more wisely. The government has a responsibility to look after its people: we, the British people, in our hour of need.”
The government has also reportedly offered to buy the coking coal essential to keep steel production running. British Steel warned the raw materials were running out after Jingye cancelled future orders of the iron ore, coal and other resources essential to operation.
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“The government has an agenda to build 1.5mn homes,” MR Gosling says. “That’s construction steel that will be used in those homes. We produce construction steel, it’s one of our base products. So if you’ve got a massive building agenda, you need our steel. And if you don’t have your own capability to supply the market, you will be importing, paying high tariffs and high prices.”
“I’m absolutely delighted that the real politician in the country we needed to stand up for us and say something, the Prime Minister, has done that.”
It is the fifth time since World War Two that Parliament has sat on a Saturday. The last time parliament was recalled was on 18 August 2021 to debate the situation in Afghanistan.
“There’s always been a partnership between the steelworks and the football club, even from the days of the donkey jackets and the flat caps” says Mr Rahman.
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