MPs on business committee launch Liberty Steel enquiry
The parliamentary business select committee has today launched an enquiry into Liberty Steel following the collapse of Greensill Capital.
It is at least the fourth enquiry into issues arising out of the failure of the boutique financier to have been launched so far amid a massive lobbying scandal involving former Prime Minister David Cameron.
The BEIS committee said it would co-ordinate with the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC), the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and the Treasury Committee on its work.
MPs will examine both the impact of the collapse of Greensill on Liberty Steel and the long-term future of the industry in the UK.
Ministers have been urged to step in to save jobs at Liberty’s steelworks, which employ about 5,000 people around the country.
But business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has said the government will not act until tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, who owns the plants through his family business GFG Alliance, has exhausted his own efforts to refinance them.
GFG’s work practices have come under question in recent weeks, with Kwarteng himself describing the organisation as “opaque”.
Committee chair Darren Jones said: “The collapse of Greensill Capital and subsequent financing issues affecting the GFG Alliance has put thousands of jobs at Liberty Steel in jeopardy.
“As a Committee, we are keen to examine some of the immediate challenges facing the UK steel industry, including at Liberty Steel, and to consider questions around decarbonisation and the long-term viability of the sector.
“If we consider steel to be a foundation industry, what can the government do regarding industrial policy to help build a financially and environmentally sustainable steel industry in the UK?”
The committee will also examine whether there is a need to reform corporate governance, audit and supply-chain finance – the once little-known area which Greensill specialised in.