Scottish Business News
New UK legislation giving ministers the power to nationalise steel firms has intensified the debate over the future of Dalzell, Scotland’s only surviving plate mill, according to analysis published in High Growth Scotland today.
The Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill allows the Secretary of State to bring a steel undertaking into public ownership where a public interest test is met, and applies to steel companies across the UK rather than to British Steel alone. Writing for High Growth Scotland, David Langstane argues that the new powers land at a critical moment for the Motherwell plant, which has spent the past two years lurching between closure, restart and financial crisis. His full article, “Steel and Scotland: does new nationalisation power offer Dalzell fresh hope?“, is published on the site today.gov+1
Dalzell, owned by Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance through Liberty Steel, fell idle in 2024 before restarting in late December 2025 to fulfil a UK government order. The plant holds a contract with Spanish state-owned shipbuilder Navantia to supply 34,000 tonnes of plate for Royal Navy Fleet Solid Support ships being built in Belfast.theguardian+2
The restart has been fragile. A January 2026 report found the plant unable to reach substantial production because of cash-flow difficulties at GFG, with an early trial run processing only around 1,000 tonnes. The financial strain sits within a wider crisis across Gupta’s businesses, after his Speciality Steel UK operation in South Yorkshire was ruled “hopelessly insolvent” and placed into compulsory liquidation in August 2025.bbc+1
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Langstane’s analysis points out that Dalzell’s core problem is ownership and cash rather than demand, since it already holds government and naval orders it has struggled to fulfil. Scottish metals figure Sir David Murray has urged the UK government to intervene and compel Liberty to give up control of the mill — the kind of action the new powers are designed to enable. The GMB union has welcomed the legislation as a “decisive intervention” and called for public infrastructure projects to buy British steel, alongside worker representation in any nationalised company.youtubebbc.co+2
The wider picture is mixed. Scottish Government data shows the economy grew 1.4% in 2025, with manufacturing output down 4.0% overall but manufacturing of metals and metal products returning to growth in the final quarter. Langstane concludes that steel still has a role in Scotland’s economy — but a narrower, more strategic one, resting heavily on a single plant whose survival may now depend on whether Westminster is prepared to use its new powers.gov+2
Read the full analysis at High Growth Scotland: Steel and Scotland: does new nationalisation power offer Dalzell fresh hope?
