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Another major steelworks — Speciality Steels UK (SSUK) in Rotherham and Sheffield — has collapsed into government hands.

This development comes just months after the government took control of British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant to protect the UK’s last blast furnaces (April 12).

And it reinforces the warning Vox Political highlighted previously: the UK cannot rely on private ownership to safeguard industries of national strategic importance.

SSUK: another strategic steel collapse

Let’s look at the facts:

• SSUK, part of Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Steel Group, is the UK’s third-largest steelworks.

• Nearly 1,500 workers face uncertainty, with many on reduced pay since July 2024.

• The High Court declared the company “hopelessly insolvent”, with only £600,000 in the bank and a monthly wage bill of £3.7 million.

Unlike British Steel, whose Chinese owners were using strategic leverage to demand hundreds of millions, SSUK collapsed under private mismanagement, demonstrating that even experienced operators cannot guarantee national industrial security.

Why the government stepped in

The government now covers operational costs and wages, and has appointed official receivers and special managers to oversee the plant while a buyer is sought.

This mirrors the intervention at Scunthorpe and highlights several points:

1. Strategic imperative – SSUK normally produces steel critical for defence, infrastructure, and industrial resilience.

2. Systemic fragility – The UK steel industry cannot withstand private financial failures without public intervention.

3. Validation – Vox Political previously warned that selling off or leaving strategic assets in private hands would leave the UK vulnerable. SSUK’s collapse proves the point.

Lessons from SSUK

There are several:

• Private ownership is not a guarantee of operational continuity.
  Gupta’s attempt at a “pre-pack administration” — effectively buying back a debt-laden company — was rejected by the courts. Reliance on private financial manoeuvres for strategic industries is high risk.

• Government intervention is inevitable if the UK wants to maintain primary steel-making capacity. This aligns with the approach already taken at British Steel in Scunthorpe.

• The human and economic stakes are real. Thousands of workers, their pensions, and regional economies are on the line. Strategic industries are not just abstract assets—they are lifelines for communities.

Wider implications

SSUK’s failure underscores a pattern:

• Strategic steel assets in the UK are financially fragile, heavily exposed to global market pressures (energy costs, tariffs, and competition from low-cost imports).

• Reliance on private operators — domestic or foreign — cannot ensure industrial security.

• If the government had not intervened, national capacity to produce steel could have shrunk further, compounding the risks highlighted in the British Steel article.

The way forward

Vox Political has argued for:

1. Planned nationalisation or temporary public control of strategic industries.

2. Investment in modernisation, such as low-carbon and hydrogen steel production, to make plants profitable long-term.

3. Strategic industrial planning, ensuring the UK retains essential manufacturing capacity for defence and infrastructure.

SSUK’s collapse reinforces that leaving strategic steel in private hands is no longer a viable option.

Vox Political‘s verdict

The UK’s steel crisis is not a one-off event.

SSUK’s insolvency proves that Vox Political’s warnings about strategic vulnerability, reliance on private owners, and the need for government oversight were prescient.

Without decisive action — whether through nationalisation, targeted investment, or both — the UK risks losing critical industrial capacity permanently, at the cost of jobs, communities, and national security.

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