As the government takes control of another beleaguered steel works, Eliot Wilson asks what, exactly, the long-term plan is?

Speciality Steels UK (SSUK) is in trouble, to put it lightly. Last week, amid mounting piles of debt and denied requests for financial assistance, the company was pushed into compulsory liquidation, and is now under government control.

The South Yorkshire-based company, owned by Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Steel, is the third-biggest steel manufacturer in Britain and has the country’s largest electric arc furnace, which produces steel from scrap. Having desperately sought a pre-pack administration arrangement to refinance the business and retain ownership, representatives from Libebrrty Steel said the High Court decision to wind up the company on Thursday was “highly disappointing”, and maintained that Liberty Steel was “by far the best company to run this business”.

It comes after the government also stepped in to take control of British Steel in April after hurriedly passing the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025.

This is not wholesale nationalisation but it is very close to it, and that may........

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