Latest news with #BritishSteel
Spectator
2 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Portrait of the week: War in the Middle East, drought in Yorkshire and a knighthood for Beckham
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs (which he had previously opposed) on the recommendation of Baroness Casey of Blackstock, who had been asked to audit the matter. His announcement came after four men born in Pakistan and three Rochdale-born taxi drivers of Asian descent were convicted of offences against two teenage girls who were repeatedly raped and assaulted in Rochdale from 2001 to 2006. The Casey report said that Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire had 'disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation'. At the G7 summit in Canada, Sir Keir managed to sign a limited agreement on tariffs with President Donald Trump, who left early. British Steel secured a five-year, £500 million contract to supply rails for Network Rail. A London Underground driver was sacked after knitting and watching videos while operating a train. Blaise Metreweli is to head MI6. MPs voted 379 to 137 for Tonia Antoniazzi's amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, decriminalising abortion at any stage. Taxpayers discovered that the spending review assumed council tax will rise by the maximum allowed of 5 per cent a year and that police funding assumed a rise in the police precept added to council tax. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, said that a priority of the spending review was 'to grow Britain's economy so that working people are better off'. Gross domestic product fell by 0.3 per cent. Inflation remained at 3.4 per cent. Rioters set fire to a leisure centre in Larne, Co. Antrim, used as a refuge for migrants from previous days' violence – and live-streamed on TikTok the burning of a house in Ballymena. The government said it would phase out the use of hotels for asylum-seekers by building state-owned accommodation and cutting small-boat crossings. In the seven days to 16 June, 1,733 migrants arrived in small boats. Among the 1,215 recipients of the King's birthday honours (48 per cent women), Roger Daltrey of the Who and David Beckham, the ex-footballer, were made knights. Penny Mordaunt, who carried the Sword of State at the Coronation, and the ceramicist Emma Bridgewater became dames. The darts player Luke Littler, 18, was appointed MBE. Alfred Brendel, the pianist, died aged 94. The waiting list for routine hospital treatments in England fell from 7.42 million in March to 7.39 million in April. A drought was declared in Yorkshire. Abroad Israel went to war with Iran, launching dozens of strikes on long-range missile sites and targets related to the nuclear programme. The first attack killed General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran's chief of the military staff, and Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as leading nuclear scientists. Benjamin Netanyahu urged Iranians to overthrow their rulers. Iran retaliated with missiles and drones, some hitting near Tel Aviv and Haifa, as Israelis took to shelters. In the first three days, 24 people were killed in Israel and 224 in Iran. During a bulletin from the Iranian state broadcaster, debris fell and dust filled the studio. 'This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us,' Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, said. Mr Trump posted a message on social media: 'Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran.' Russia carried out a missile and drone attack on Kyiv, killing at least 21 people. Mr Trump made a speech on his 79th birthday at the military parade in Washington, DC, to mark the 250th birthday of the American army; thousands demonstrated against him in several cities. Mr Trump called on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to carry out 'the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History'. On the way to the G7, President Emmanuel Macron of France visited Greenland. A London-bound Air India plane carrying 242 people, including 53 Britons, crashed shortly after take-off at Ahmedabad, falling on accommodation at the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy medical college; one passenger survived, a man from Leicester. Fire engulfed the 67-storey Marina Pinnacle in Dubai Marina; all 3,820 residents were rescued. A Chinese captain was jailed for three years by a Taiwanese court for damaging an undersea cable to the Penghu islands. Brian Wilson, the songwriter with the Beach Boys, died aged 82. CSH
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump says UK is protected from tariffs ‘because I like them' as trade deal is signed off
Keir Starmer and Donald Trump have signed off a UK-US trade deal at the G7 summit in Canada, with the US president saying Britain would have protection against future tariffs 'because I like them'. The two leaders presented the deal, which covers aerospace and the auto sector, at the G7 venue in Kananaskis, Alberta. When reporters asked about steel, Trump said: 'We're going to let you have that information in a little while.' Under details released by the Department for Business and Trade, the UK aerospace sector will face no tariffs at all from the US, while the auto industry will have 10% tariffs, down from 25%. The steel industry still faces 25% tariffs for now, although this is less than the US's global rate of 50% on steel and aluminium. The UK business department said the two leaders had pledged to 'make progress towards 0% tariffs on core steel products as agreed'. However, the US executive order implementing the deal highlighted a possible hiccup over steel tariffs. The US still wants assurances about the Chinese owners of British Steel. In a paragraph setting out a future move to 'most-favoured-nation rates for steel and aluminum articles', the order says the UK has 'committed to working to meet American requirements on the security of the supply chains of steel and aluminum products intended for export to the United States and on the nature of ownership of relevant production facilities'. This would seem to refer to US worries about Jingye Group, which owns British Steel even though the UK government took control of the company in April to stop Jingye closing its Scunthorpe plant. Trump's administration wants assurances that Jingye does not use British Steel as a way to circumvent US tariffs. A full version of the deal first outlined in May had been seen as imminent, but Downing Street will be particularly happy to have it finalised at the summit, with full endorsement from a cheerful Trump – even if he did wrongly say the deal was with the EU. 'I just signed it, and it's done. And so we have our trade agreement with the European Union, and it's a fair deal for both, and it produces a lot of jobs, a lot of income,' Trump said. 'And we have many, many other ones coming. But you see, the level of enthusiasm is very good, but the relationship that we have is fantastic.' As has been his habit in recent meetings with Starmer, the mercurial president was warm in his praise for a fellow leader who is not a political soulmate. 'We're very longtime partners and allies and friends, and we've become friends in a short period of time. He's slightly more liberal than I am,' Trump joked at one point. Asked if the UK was now protected from future tariffs, Trump said: 'The UK is very well protected. You know why? Because I like them – that's their ultimate protection.' He added: 'The prime minister has done a great job. I want to just tell that to the people of the United Kingdom. He's done a very, very good job. He's done what other people, they've been talking about this deal for six years, and he's done what they haven't been able to do. So he's done really a very good job.' The comments came just before the pair met for talks at the G7 event, where Starmer was poised to push the US president for new sanctions against Russia and to help end the war between Iran and Israel. In a separate announcement late on Monday, Downing Street said it expected further sanctions on Moscow to be set out at the summit, seeking to 'ratchet up pressure until Russia is ready to commit to a full and unconditional ceasefire'. No 10 said there would be more details on Tuesday.
Mint
2 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Starmer Says US Not Targeting Steel Ownership in Trade Talks
The UK does not need to push out British Steel's Chinese owners in order to cut a deal to reduce US tariffs on steel, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. Speaking to journalists at the G7 summit in Canada, Starmer said there was 'further work to do in relation to steel' in negotiations with President Donald Trump but that 'doesn't require us to change the ownership of British Steel.' It comes a day after Starmer and Trump announced they had finalized the details of a trade deal that will allow the UK to avoid the higher tariffs that the US is imposing on other countries. Its main terms — initially agreed to in May — gave the US greater access to the UK's beef and ethanol market in return for lower tariffs on UK steel and automobiles exported to the US. But while the two leaders on Monday agreed to implement a reduction in tariffs on UK cars from 27.5% to 10%, an exemption for Britain's civil aerospace sector from Trump's baseline 10% tariff, and for increased access to US beef and ethanol exporters, steel was left off the list. The US has demanded that the UK meet its 'requirements on the security of the supply chains of steel and aluminum' including on the 'nature of ownership' of relevant steel plants — provisions that were included in the original May agreement and the one struck this week. That had prompted speculation that the ownership of British Steel by China's Jingye Group was problematic — even though the government took operational control of struggling British Steel earlier this year. But Starmer dismissed that suggestion on Tuesday. 'There's further work to do in relation to steel, but we're getting on and doing that work, and that doesn't require us to change the ownership of British Steel,' Starmer told reporters in Kananaskis, Canada on Tuesday. He added that in the meantime, the tariff reductions for cars and aerospace will be implemented 'within days.' Last week, UK Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told reporters in London that the real hurdle was so-called 'melt-and-pour' provisions. They've been a feature of previous trade deals with the US and demand that steel must be melted down and poured in the UK to benefit from preferential tariff rates. That's a requirement that is becoming increasingly hard for UK steel manufacturers to fulfill. British Steel owns the country's last remaining blast furnace. Tata Steel shut its down last year, and a new electric arc furnace that can create steel from scrap will not be up and running until late 2027. 'One has to remember that while the Biden administration also insisted on conditions to have steel melted and poured in exporting countries, there were also product-specific exemptions which the UK benefited from given its niche orders from US customers,' said Allie Renison, director at SEC Newgate and a former adviser to the previous government's business and trade secretary. 'In reintroducing steel tariffs, the Trump administration scrapped these so that duties also extended to derivative products, and trying to negotiate back to these or asking for an exclusion will naturally take some time.' Currently, the UK is contending with US tariffs on steel of 25%. It is the only country not to have been hit by Trump's 50% tariffs on the sector, though some manufacturers have already reported their US orders drying up. The US has said that it would exempt the UK up to a certain quota on steel imports, but that has not yet been set because technical details have held up the negotiations. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will later determine what that quota is without being subject to the 25% tariffs, a White House official said. Starmer's decision to push ahead with the automotive, beef and ethanol parts of the deal while leaving steel negotiations for later raises the risk that Trump might ask the UK to sweeten the negotiating package, Renison said. 'The US is never above trying to extract an extra pound of flesh in return - even if this is something they've already committed to in principle,' she said. Previously, the US has indicated it would like the UK to reduce or eliminate its digital services tax, charged on the revenues of search engines and social media platforms. Vice President JD Vance has also suggested that he would like to see the UK's hate speech laws relaxed. But Crawford Falconer, Britain's former top trade negotiator, said Starmer probably had very little choice but to agree to what Trump proposed. 'If there was any mistake it was over-hyping on steel to begin with,' he said. Even the Biden administration had been tough on melt-and-pour provisions, 'it's not clear why they ever thought it was in the bag.' This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Starmer Says US Not Targeting Steel Ownership in Trade Talks
By and Ellen Milligan Updated on Save The UK does not need to push out British Steel's Chinese owners in order to cut a deal to reduce US tariffs on steel, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. Speaking to journalists at the G7 summit in Canada, Starmer said there was 'further work to do in relation to steel' in negotiations with President Donald Trump but that 'doesn't require us to change the ownership of British Steel.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Network Rail strikes lifeline £500m deal with British Steel to help save the Scunthorpe blast furnaces
Network Rail has struck a lifeline £500million deal with British Steel to help save the Scunthorpe blast furnaces – but the industry is still facing punitive 25 per cent US tariffs. The agreement, for British Steel to produce 337,000 tonnes of rails over five years, safeguards 2,700 jobs. But the industry remains in peril unless the Government can finalise its trade deal with the Trump administration and have tariffs removed. Otherwise, the charge would rise from its interim level of 25 per cent – covering UK steel imports while trade deal discussions are ongoing – to the 50 per cent levied on all other countries. And the rail-supply deal follows outcry after the state-owned track and infrastructure company put a £140million steel contract for overhead electrical installations out for tender on the open market last month, as revealed in The Mail on Sunday. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, who yesterday visited Scunthorpe steelworks to finalise the deal, said it 'truly transforms the outlook for British Steel'.
