Unions are seeking urgent talks with British Steel after its auditors warned it may not be able to continue trading.
The Chinese-owned company has not met with senior union officials since November, when it proposed slashing jobs and replacing its blast furnaces with greener electric steelmaking facilities, the Mail on Sunday understands.
Around 2,000 of 4,500 jobs are at risk under the plans and the business says it will need hundreds of millions of pounds in funding from the Government to make the switch.
Unions are hoping to meet senior British Steel staff in early April. The Scunthorpe-based company has three unions – Community, Unite and GMB. It is not yet clear which would attend.
British Steel’s financial accounts for 2021, which were published a year late, are understood to have raised major concerns. Auditors Moore Kingston Smith said in January there was a material uncertainty about the company’s ability to keep trading without an injection of cash from Chinese owner Jingye.
Staring into the abyss: British Steel has proposed slashing jobs and replacing its blast furnaces with greener electric steelmaking facilities
Moore Kingston Smith resigned as auditor and said it was unable to confirm the existence of £46 million of stock.
An industry source said: ‘British Steel needs to get its act together. There are thousands of jobs and millions of pounds of taxpayer cash on the line and they’re playing silly buggers.’
Directors said they were ‘confident’ British Steel would have enough funding for at least 12 months. But the auditors pointed to the absence of ‘legally binding’ agreements to provide more cash.
British Steel has yet to publish more up-to-date figures, leaving workers in the dark about the state of its finances. A spokesman said its 2022 accounts would be published ‘in due course’.
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