Reform UK will table amendments during Parliament's emergency session on British Steel tomorrow, with the party planning to "force a vote on nationalisation".MPs are being recalled on Saturday to discuss the future of the steelmaker amid mounting speculation about government intervention.READ THE FULL STORY
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00:00Welcome to the studio. Thank you for joining us on a Friday night.
00:02Are Labour nicking your policies?
00:04Well, they're listening to us there, copying our policies to a degree.
00:06I've been urging this government, since last autumn,
00:09when it had a steel debate in Westminster Hall,
00:11I said, don't let these blast furnaces close.
00:14I called for nationalisation, as has Lee Anderson and Nigel, for many weeks.
00:18We started this six years ago as the Brexit party.
00:21So we were in, Nigel and I were in Scunthorpe on Tuesday, calling for this.
00:25We forced Labour to this position.
00:26But here's the point, Chris.
00:27Actually, they're only going a halfway house.
00:30They're saying they're not going to let them close.
00:32But why are they bottling it?
00:33Why are they being cowardly and saying...
00:35Because they're waiting for a private equity company to buy it?
00:38No, because they don't want to give us the credit.
00:39What they should do is remove the uncertainty to 3,000-plus families in North Lincolnshire.
00:46I mean, they're supposed to understand the working class.
00:49There is fear and terror amongst all of those workers.
00:53We're saying, do the job properly.
00:54It's a great opportunity to invest long-term in these blast furnaces, crack on with it, nationalise the industry this weekend, bring in some top-quality global expertise, look at bringing in, for example, the electric arc furnaces that are redundant in Liberty Steel in Rotherham.
01:11It's a great opportunity with long-term procurement contracts.
01:14So we're urging them to do the right thing.
01:16We will be tabling some amendments, possibly at the third reading tomorrow, to try and get this done this weekend rather than drag it out.
01:24You'll force a vote on nationalisation.
01:25We're certainly going to try to.
01:26We'll try to, our amendments may or may not be called by the Speaker's office, but that's our plan.
01:33And, you know, look, this is a significant step in the right direction.
01:37But if you're going to do a job, Labour, do it properly.
01:39Maurice Glassman was in your seat moments ago.
01:41He said, no reformer, nicking our policies.
01:43But you're all rowing about the same issue.
01:45Absolutely.
01:46What we do know is that the Conservative Party is absolutely nowhere on this.
01:50I mean, when we were calling for it six years ago, in April 19, I think I was in Scunthorpe at a press conference, calling to retain it in public ownership, not sell it to the Chinese.
02:00I think I was there, actually.
02:01And, you know, we've been right all along on this.
02:03It's a great opportunity, long-term thinking.
02:07OK, get that.
02:07But isn't caution a watchword?
02:08There's a plant here losing, reportedly, £700,000 a day.
02:11The Treasury knows money's tight.
02:13We've got problems with tariffs.
02:14You can't just pile in.
02:15It's got nothing to do with the tariffs.
02:16I'll tell you why it is.
02:17First of all, I don't believe the Jingye numbers.
02:19They claim £76 million worth of interest on their internal shareholder loans.
02:24That's the first point.
02:25That's the Chinese owners.
02:25That's the Chinese owners.
02:27But, no, the reality is that you've got, because of net stupid zero imposed by the Tories, we've got the highest energy prices.
02:33Then you've got carbon tariffs that we don't need.
02:36Scrap all of that nonsense, and you can have a viable, thriving steel industry growing, selling to British producers.
02:43Oh, and by the way, isn't it a bit embarrassing for Labour?
02:46Because they prevented the coking coal coal plant, coal mine, sorry, in Cumbria last November.
02:54So we're now importing coking coal from Japan.
02:57How ridiculous.
02:58We could create hundreds of jobs and more wealth.
03:01So they should reassess that and let that coal mine open.
03:05Well, that might change, and if you are in government, and you could be in government, you could be the Chancellor or have a senior role in government, you'll be facing the same spreadsheet that your Reid is facing.
03:13The plant here, they say losing £700,000 a day.
03:16It's not economically viable, they say.
03:18If the Chinese can't make it viable, how can we?
03:21Because they haven't done the job properly.
03:23They haven't had the best global expertise.
03:24I've been speaking to some of the best steel managers in the world in the last fortnight.
03:29I know how to do it.
03:30We could make it viable.
03:32Long-term contracts on the input materials, long-term contracts into the public sector, the defence sector, and others in terms of sales.
03:39The government can forecast that 10, 20 years out.
03:42That's how you make it a sensible, viable, cash-positive business.
03:46But that guarantee might pull in long-term private equity investors too.
03:49And that's why the whole new option opens for private equity investors.
03:51The private equity world, they want two bigger returns.
03:53It's more likely to be suitable for long-term pension fund money.
03:57That's the reality.
03:58This is what we understand.
03:59So that's to allow pension funds to buy it then?
04:01Well, you can have a great joint venture where, for example, public ownership, let's say 50%, long-term pension fund money for another 50%, great private sector management.
04:11That's how you create a win-win.
04:13Because of our business expertise, we understand this common-sense, business-like approach to these sort of things.
04:18You can do it with other utilities like water, for example.
04:22And I think we're actually driving the agenda.
04:23The truth is we are actually the real opposition.
04:27The Tories are just clueless on this.
04:28They frankly don't understand it.
04:30Just very quickly, on the issue of peerages today, would you accept one to go to the House of Lords?
04:34No, I wouldn't, because we want to get rid of the House of Lords in its current form.
04:37You might have a second chamber with maybe term-limited elected people.
04:42It doesn't need to be 800.
04:44There's a variety of ways of doing it.
04:45You might have regional senators, whatever you want to call them.
04:50But this set-up is just ridiculous.
04:51I've always been against it.
04:52That's also what Gordon Brown recommended broadly for the Labour Party.
04:57These two main parties all talk, all talk, all talk, no action.
05:00But aren't you like the Liberal Democrats?
05:02Let me finish for you.
05:03Shocking accusation.
05:04Goodness me.
05:05Aren't you the same as Lib Dems?
05:06Because you're saying one thing to one group and one thing to the other.
05:09You're a low-tax party, but you're imposing tax on net-zero companies.
05:13You want to get rid of the House of Lords.
05:16You want to nationalise British Steel.
05:17Basically, you're going around the market where the votes are
05:21and picking them rather than believing in something.
05:23Most importantly, I look a lot better in a wetsuit than Ed David does.
05:27But, no, look, at the end of the day, the Lib Dems, they're all over the place.
05:30I mean, they really are.
05:30All they're trying to do is just bash Donald Trump.
05:32We know what we're doing.
05:33We've got the right business attitude.
05:35And Labour are now having to adopt and copy reforms of the position.
05:38They need to get on with it.
05:38Richard.