DAVID CAMERON did not rule out taking a public stake in British steel yesterday during Downing Street talks with Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones.

Beforehand, Mr Jones said he would seek assurances that the government would take Tata Steel plants into public ownership until a private buyer is found. 

After the meeting, he said he was “heartened” to hear from the Prime Minister that “nothing is off the table.” He said: “I went in there today with a view to making sure that the UK government understood our position. We’re in the same position.

“We cannot imagine a UK without steelmaking. I’m not prepared to leave any stone unturned in order to make sure that our steel industry has a future.”

Mr Jones backed away from the word “nationalisation” because he said that implied an “indefinite takeover of an industry.”

But in an emergency statement to the Welsh Assembly on Monday he said “the UK government must take the plants into public ownership until a buyer can be found.”

And Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “They seem to be unclear about the role the government could take in this. We have to guarantee the industry, we have to guarantee the jobs and the pensions, we have to be prepared to take a public stake in it to guarantee that,” he said.

“Because we all need the steel industry in Britain.”

One potential investor, Sanjeev Gupta, the head of the Liberty Group, met ministers yesterday to discuss a buyout, including Britain’s biggest steel plant at Port Talbot. 

Some 4,000 of Tata Steel’s 15,000-strong British workforce are based at the plant in south Wales. Mr Gupta told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it is “definitely my objective” to avoid redundancies if he buys the company. 

The Indian magnate, whose group recently bought a steelworks in Newport, cautioned that it was “early days” and said the biggest “obstacle” would be the cost of the company pension scheme. 

Mr Jones raised the issue at his meeting with Mr Cameron and reported: “The government has indicated that they want to take steps to help with that liability because we know that, without that being dealt with, there won’t be a sale.”

Sajid Javid belatedly flew to Mumbai yesterday to meet Tata group chairman Cyrus Mistry. 

The Tory Business Secretary was pictured wearing a tuxedo at a plush dinner for bosses in Australia last week while steel unions were in Mumbai to lobby the company to save the industry.