BRITISH STEEL staff and civil servants raced to secure the raw materials needed to keep Britain’s last primary steel-making plant running today.

Without materials such as coking coal and iron ore, the blast furnaces at the Scunthorpe plant will cool, risking irreparable damage. 

On Saturday, the government passed an emergency law to seize control of the plant from the company’s Chinese owners Jingye.

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC that the government made the move after learning that the firm had not only stopped ordering more raw materials, but begun selling off existing supplies.

Andy Prendergast, national secretary at the GMB union, said: “Where we are at the moment is that we’re confident that the deal being done with the raw materials, and the steps being taken will get there on time, and ultimately that has the potential to preserve the future for the plant.

“There still needs to be… a deal to be done for the future, whether that’s our preference — which is nationalisation of what is a key national asset — or whether that’s a genuine private investor who’s willing to come in and put up the money.

“I think for us the key thing is that we keep this plant going and keep virgin steel-making capacity in the UK.”

Asked about an expected timeline for getting the material in, Mr Prendergast said: “We’re being told it’s going to come in good time, so we’re… hopeful that it’s the next 48 hours but we haven’t had confirmation of that.

“However, we believe the steps taken would be meaningless if there weren’t the logistics in place to get it to the plant on time.”

A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry urged the British government to “avoid politicising trade co-operation or linking it to security issues, so as not to impact the confidence of Chinese enterprises in going to the UK.”

The Department for Business and Trade said officials, along with British Steel staff, are working to bring nearby materials on site as well as ensuring that staff continue to get paid.

Roy Rickhuss, the general secretary of the Community trade union, which represents steelworkers, accused Jingye of “working against the business...if that’s fair to say, that they weren’t ordering raw materials.”