"You can recall me on any Saturday, at any time, and twice on a Sunday, if it means we can save industries."
Lee Barron delivered a passionate speech in Parliament on Saturday 12th April 2025 during an emergency Saturday debate – the first since the Falklands War – which paved the way for the re-nationalisation of British Steel.
The Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act bill was given Royal Assent, becoming law just after 6pm on the same day and now Government officials are leading the Scunthorpe British Steel plant.
The plant is the only one in the UK to still produce virgin steel. Its blast furnace-produced steel is purer than that made in modern electric arc furnaces. It is seen as strategically vital to maintain a steel producer on British shores because it is used for large infrastructure projects including rail and road schemes.
But it has recently come under threat, with the potential loss of 2,700 jobs, after its Chinese owners said it was no longer viable. The owners were said to have been locked out of the plant this morning in an apparent bid to prevent the blast furnaces being switched off.
Steelmaking is also an intrinsic part of Corby’s history, with its rapid increase in population sparked by the opening of the steelworks a century ago. When it closed in 1980, thousands lost their jobs, but the town retains its Tata-owned tubeworks and is still the proud manufacturer of Corby Steel Tubes.
Lee was the East Midlands Trades Union Council Secretary and has long been a support of Corby’s steel trade.
During the debate Lee said: “To those who have been moaning about us having been recalled on a Saturday, I say that you can recall me on any Saturday, at any time, and twice on a Sunday, if it means we can save industries and thousands of jobs. I will be here every time.”
“Some of us know what it is like. The town of Corby was built on steel. The people of Corby and East Northamptonshire know only too well what it is like to have the steelworks closed down and devastation befall local communities.
"When the Corby steelworks closed, 14,000 people lost their jobs and unemployment rose to 30 per cent. Corby and East Northamptonshire was once home to the largest steelworks in Europe.”
"Today, it employs just shy of 500 people, and it still manufactures 250,000 tonnes of steel tubing per year. We would not be the place that we are without the steelworks that Corby once had, and we know the devastation that the job losses would cause for the community of Scunthorpe.”
"That is why this is the right thing to do.”
“We must maintain steelmaking capacity in the UK. In these increasingly uncertain times, we must maintain national security by having the ability to produce our own virgin steel.”
"All options should be open, but the blast furnaces must not be switched off, because once that happens, they are gone. That is the problem in other parts of the country, and it should have been raised at the time. In any modern economy with a central mission for growth, production of our own steel is crucial. That will be at the heart of any future industrial strategy.”
“I am proud to be here today to support the Bill and to secure a future for steelmaking in the UK.”
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