by Our News Desk

JEREMY CORBYN accused the government yesterday of having no industrial strategy as redundancies mount in the crisis-stricken steel sector.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, the Labour leader quoted a fitter at the Tata steelworks in Scunthorpe.

The fitter asked: “What are you going to do to support the steel industry and its workers who are now facing redundancy?

“Is it not time to walk the walk rather than talk the talk about the industrial strategy?”

David Cameron insisted his administration was doing everything it could to help.

These included changing procurement rules which already meant that the Crossrail project used British steel “almost exclusively.”

But Mr Corbyn countered: “Isn’t the real problem that the government doesn’t actually have an industrial strategy to protect the most important industries in this country?

“Thousands of jobs have already gone in Redcar, Scunthorpe, Rotherham, Motherwell, Cambuslang, Wrexham and across the West Midlands.

“Isn’t it time for concrete action today so there is government intervention, there is support for our industry and we do have a viable steel industry for the long term, which this country desperately needs to have?” the Labour leader demanded.

Labour MP for Scunthorpe Nic Dakin asked Mr Cameron whether he had made clear to visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping the “urgent need” to stop steel dumping by his country.

Mr Xi said problems were down to the global financial crisis and China too had cut its output.

“We have reduced more than 700 million tons of production capacity and you can just imagine our task of finding jobs for those workers,” he said.