- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: Sattwik Biswal
BRITAIN needs to distinguish between Liberty Steel and the company which runs it and now caught up in the Greensill Capital collapse, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said on Tuesday (30).
“I think it’s a really important national asset and what we have to do is to distinguish between Liberty Steel and the company that sits above it,” Kwarteng told BBC Radio.
“All options at the moment are on the table. We think the steel industry has a future in the UK,” he added.
Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance employs a total of 5,000 people in the UK – 3,000 of them in steel and aluminium businesses across 12 UK sites.
Gupta’s request for a £170 million bailout loan to prevent his group from collapse, was reportedly rejected by the British ministers on Sunday (28).
Meanwhile, Liberty Steel UK, said on Monday (29) that it planned to restart production next week and it was continuing to seek new funding after its main financial backer Greensill Capital collapsed.
Over the conduct of former David Cameron on the behalf of Greensill Capital, Kwarteng doesn’t think the former prime minister has done anything wrong.
“What I am questioning is whether David Cameron did anything wrong and I don’t think he did,” Kwarteng told BBC Radio.
Moreover, Cameron on Saturday (27) was cleared of investigation by a watchdog in the Greensill Capital lobbying matter.
The Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists investigating the matter had concluded that Cameron’s activities had not fallen within the criteria that required registration.
It was alleged that Cameron had contacted officials on the behalf of Greensill, but the watchdog said the contact happened after he was prime minister.
