President’s Column: February 2026

Where’s the plan?

At the end of my last column I asked readers to think about what they could do to help both the BCSA and the wider UK structural steelwork industry. As is often the case, an opportunity has arisen straight away with the decision to procure Chinese fabricated steel for the Net Zero Teesside (NZT) project. The BCSA has requested that every member contacts their local MP to raise awareness of this threat to our industry which employs over 100,000 people in the UK and quite simply the more letters sent to MPs the better.

The decisions made on the NZT project will have at least provoked a reaction from the national press and as a result questions are now being raised at governmental level. It is very hard to see how any country could arrive at a position where on the one hand a taxpayer backed project awards a contract to import steel from China, and on the other hand the same taxpayer is supporting one of its own local steel suppliers at a reported cost of £1 million a day. This clearly shouldn’t happen, but without any consistency in policy across government departments it can, and will happen again with potentially disastrous implications.

I watched a Sky News report last week which detailed the demise of the once mighty UK chemical industry over the last 10 years. During this time, 11 major plants have shut down with little reporting on this loss of critical infrastructure. Since Roman times Britain has been self-sufficient in salt production but this could soon change with the closure of one of the last two processing facilities. The plant needs replacing but due to the UK having the highest energy costs in the world the operating company will most likely build overseas. 

Salt is a chemical building block and is involved, at some point, in 90% of all pharmaceuticals. However, the UK has already lost the ability to produce other building blocks such as soda ash used to manufacture glass and ammonia which is key to the manufacture of fertiliser, but also when combined with sulphuric acid in explosives. In all cases, the cost of energy has been the driver to move production overseas and this is despite the Government’s own Industrial Strategy acknowledging that the chemical industry is a key foundational sector.

We are still awaiting the publication of the Government’s strategy for steel which was originally due in the spring of last year. The consultation document stated that steel is critical to both the economy now and in the future. It then goes on to describe placing the UK at the forefront of the transition to green steel and unfortunately the current lack of this capability in the UK was given as the reason for importing steel from China in the NZT project. The document also states that the UK can champion decarbonisation without deindustrialisation. However, the experience of the chemical industry would show that this has not been the case to date. Heavy industry is energy intensive and steel producers will require continued support with network charges if they are to have any chance of being competitive globally.

The future strategy is important and the plan for steel cannot come quick enough. However, there must be consistency across government with taxpayer funded procurement of steelwork only being awarded to UK steel producers and fabricators. In a rapidly changing world our core heavy industries are becoming even more important and due to neglect in many sectors we are now over reliant on imports. The NZT project also demonstrates that overtime, importers will move further along the supply chain all the time removing more and more value from the UK jobs market. This does not need to be the case with structural steel but it is already occurring and begs the question, where’s the plan?

Chris Durand
BCSA President