The UK steel industry was nationalised in 1967. It hit peak output of 28 m tonnes in 1970 and spent the rest of its life sacking employees, closing plants and sending huge bills for losses to taxpayers. Under Margaret Thatcher it was turned round, made profitable and privatised. In its turn the privatised industry this century has sacked people and closed works, largely as a result of the UK’s ultra high energy prices and carbon taxes.
The collapse was biggest 1970-80, taking it down from 28 m to 11.3 mtonnes. The Labour government identified many plants in the Beswick review to close to get costs down. The Thatcher government put through the closures in 1980. The industry expanded strongly to 17.8 m tonnes by 1990 as it became privately owned and profitable. In the 1990 s it performed OK, with output of 15.2 m in 2000. There was then another collapse in the period 2000-2010, taking it down to 9.7 m tonnes. After covid it fell away to 7.1 m in 2020, down to 5.6 m in 2023 as net zero policies kicked in against traditional blast furnaces. Under the current government it has halved again to under 2.5 m tonnes.
The original idea of nationalisation was to concentrate production on five coastal modern integrated works. No sooner had the big public investment been made and the pressures started to close at least one as they could not sell all the product . Ravenscraig was the first to close in 1992, followed by Llanwern in 2001 and Teeside in 2015. We are left with PortTalbot trying to build an electric arc furnace to replace its closed blast furnaces, and Scunthorpe struggling to keep 2 remaining blast furnaces open.