More than £50m spent on international metal that would come from Britain

More than £50 million of public money was spent on foreign steel imports last year which could have come from UK suppliers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The new Government procurement data comes after a furious row over Chinese steel ordered for the taxpayer-funded £4 billion Net Zero Teesside (NZT) carbon capture gas power station, overseen by Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Some £53.9 million was spent on foreign steel in 2024-25 by Government departments, as well as by the HS2 railway project, National Highways and Network Rail. This is despite a Government pledge to support the beleaguered UK industry and £1 million a day spent subsidising the country’s last blast furnaces at British Steel in Scunthorpe.

An industry source said: ‘The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. It’s time the Government backed up its support of the industry and made sure public projects are built with UK steel.’

Failing to back Britain: More than £50 million of public money was spent on foreign steel imports last year which could have come from UK suppliers

Steel boss Sir Andrew Cook, who favours boosting the UK industry with orders over subsidies, said: ‘Taxpayer money should be spent, where possible, on British steel.’

The Daily Mail revealed that a deal to supply steel for NZT was signed between its private backers, led by BP, and China’s Modern Modular Engineering and Construction despite British Steel’s bid for the £5 million, 7,000-ton order. After the decision, industry minister Chris McDonald ordered emergency talks with project representatives – saying he expected taxpayer projects to use UK steel.

But new figures reveal that of the 293,000 tons of steel purchased by public bodies last year, worth £374 million, a third was imported from abroad. These overseas purchases include orders for reinforcing bar (rebar) steel used in concrete making, structural girders and railway track.

This is despite the fact that rebar is made at the 7 Steel plant in Cardiff while British Steel produces railway track and structural steel.

HS2 sourced a quarter of its rebar abroad paying £25 million for 31,669 tons and £69.4 million on 84,400 tons of British rebar. National Highways spent £1.4 million on 2,000 tons of rebar from Europe and just £1.2 million on 1,750 ton s from Britain.

Network Rail paid £23 million for 17,799 tons of Austrian steel, 16 per cent of its total for the year, calling it a ‘contingency’ amid uncertainty about British Steel.

Another £4.6 million was paid for 7,306 tons of foreign steel to build schools, prisons and military bases.

Conservative MP John Cooper called UK steel policy ‘ruinously expensive but entirely disjointed’.