No-deal Brexit "puts Rotherham steel industry at risk", MP John Healey warns

UK Steel said that all steel exports beyond a certain “quota” level would be hit with 25 per cent tariffs, which could cost the country’s steel producers £1.2 million a day.

LEAVING the EU without a deal would put Rotherham steel jobs “at direct risk”, MP John Healey warned today.

This was a cost “neither UK steel producers nor our customers would be able to shoulder”, UK Steel said.

Mr Healey said he understood half of the product of South Yorkshire Speciality Steels’ plants, which are run by Liberty UK, was exported to the EU.

“The public rightly expected an orderly Brexit on March 29, as the Government had told us for over two years,” he said.

“But they’ve failed to negotiate a decent Brexit deal, so we now face national humiliation and chaos. 

“This internal briefing about what will happen at the end of next week exposes the real world results of a crash-out Brexit. 

“The impact would be immediate, with local jobs, wages and businesses at direct risk. “I’ve spoken with the business secretary and told him to step in and fix this big threat to South Yorkshire steel.”

Liberty employs 2,000 people in South Yorkshire and its speciality steels arm produced 292,000 tonnes of high-grade steels last year.

Its products are sold throughout the world for highly-specialised applications such as aerospace, automotive and industrial equipment.

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