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Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on the race to keep British Steel furnaces running · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
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  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: And Gavin Gray are UK Correspondence with me. Hey Gevin, Hey,
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  Speaker 2: hena lovely to have you back, mate, It's lovely to
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  Speaker 2: talk to you.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Yeah. How are we going with
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  Speaker 1: British Steel?
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  Speaker 2: A very very touch and go at the moment, the
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  Speaker 2: government called an emergency sitting of Parliament on Saturday, the
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  Speaker 2: first time since the Falklands War that's happened back in
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  Speaker 2: the early eighties, and both houses the House of Lords
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  Speaker 2: and House of Parliament sat in order to pass through
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  Speaker 2: emergency legislation to take over British Steel. Today, the rush
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  Speaker 2: is really on to secure the supply of raw materials.
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  Speaker 2: It now materializes that the company which had bought British Steel,
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  Speaker 2: a Chinese company, had stopped buying any more raw materials
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  Speaker 2: to make the steel, and indeed was selling off some
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  Speaker 2: of the stocks of the ingredients the iron ore and
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  Speaker 2: coal and other raw materials were selling those off, So,
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  Speaker 2: in other words, they were deliberately running the plant down
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  Speaker 2: that the government said it couldn't allow. That's why it
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  Speaker 2: took this emergency work. They believe that it's the only
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  Speaker 2: place in the UK where you can make prime steel,
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  Speaker 2: in other words, not from recycled metals, but from the
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  Speaker 2: ores themselves, and they said this is far too important
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  Speaker 2: to let go. So this relationship with the Jinghyi the company,
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  Speaker 2: well it certainly looks very fractious, but the government determined
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  Speaker 2: to try and keep it going. But the moment those
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  Speaker 2: raw materials run out, the danger is those blast furnaces
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  Speaker 2: will not reopen and listen. Despite all of the big
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  Speaker 2: talk from this new government, it's not managed to do
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  Speaker 2: anything about the number of migrants crossing the channel, has it.
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  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 2: The slogan was we're going to smash the gangs, referring
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  Speaker 2: to the people smaggling gangs. Well, they have made no
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  Speaker 2: improvement at all. In fact, the number of migrants arriving
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  Speaker 2: in the UK after crossing the English Channel has reached
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  Speaker 2: a new record for the first four months of the year.
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  Speaker 2: In other words, since this new government has been in.
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  Speaker 2: Over the weekend the total went over eight thousand and
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  Speaker 2: fifty well less than halfway through April. It's already higher
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  Speaker 2: than these seven thousand, five hundred and sixty people who
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  Speaker 2: crossed the channel over the first four months of last year,
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  Speaker 2: and that was a record high at the time. So
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  Speaker 2: the big question pressure on the government to do something.
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  Speaker 2: What can it do? Well, clearly the plan to smash
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  Speaker 2: the gangs is not enough on its own. I appreciate
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  Speaker 2: these things take time, but I do think this government
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  Speaker 2: and successive governments or predssessing governments have really misunderstood the
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  Speaker 2: level of angle that people are having, particularly when they
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  Speaker 2: hear migrants in France say we want to get to
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  Speaker 2: the UK because in some cases, you know, we want
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  Speaker 2: to be put up in a hotel. Well, that bill
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  Speaker 2: is costing sixteen million New Zealand dollars a day, and
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  Speaker 2: this government seemingly has not got the numbers staying in
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  Speaker 2: hotels down either. Yeah, amazing, Okay, how's it going in
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  Speaker 2: Birmingham with great difficulty. So Birmingham has had a rubbish strike,
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  Speaker 2: a bin strike since the middle of March. The row
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  Speaker 2: is over pay and it's a row with unions. And
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  Speaker 2: this is interesting because of course the government, the labor
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  Speaker 2: government here is supported by a lot of unions and
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  Speaker 2: vice versa, so this is an awkward one for it.
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  Speaker 2: This is Birmingham City Council, which is a labor run
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  Speaker 2: council is now having to appeal to neighboring authorities to
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  Speaker 2: help and is having to pay them. And now they're
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  Speaker 2: even calling in the army to help tackle the crisis. Now,
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  Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, this isn't soldiers doing the manual work.
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  Speaker 2: This is military planners called in to help tackle the
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  Speaker 2: mounting piles of rubbish. Seventeen thousand tons of rubbish are
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  Speaker 2: said to have accumulated across Birmingham over the first four
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  Speaker 2: weeks of the strike. A recent negotiation did not work.
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  Speaker 2: The unions walked away and couldn't get an agreement with
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  Speaker 2: the council. The government's trying sort of not to get
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  Speaker 2: involved because it doesn't look very good on it. Of
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  Speaker 2: course being a labor council and supporting the unions, but
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  Speaker 2: what a mess. People are reporting terrible problems with vermin
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  Speaker 2: and rats and frankly with warm weather. It's been pretty
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  Speaker 2: disgusting for the people at Birmingham.
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  Speaker 1: Can imagine.
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  Speaker 2: Kevin, thank you very much. Check you in a couple
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  Speaker 2: of days.
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  Speaker 1: Look after yourself.
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  Speaker 2: As Kevin Gray are UK correspondent.
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