H
business
H
HOYONEWS
HomeBusinessTechnologySportPolitics
Others
  • Food
  • Culture
  • Society
Contact
Home
Business
Technology
Sport
Politics

Food

Culture

Society

Contact
Facebook page
H
HOYONEWS

Company

business
technology
sport
politics
food
culture
society

CONTACT

EMAILmukum.sherma@gmail.com
© 2025 Hoyonews™. All Rights Reserved.
Facebook page

Government to cover pay and pensions at collapsed South Yorkshire steelworks

about 18 hours ago
A picture


Workers at the UK’s third-largest steelworks, in South Yorkshire, have been assured that they will receive their pay for August as well as unpaid pension contributions after a government-appointed special manager took over the collapsed company.Liberty Steel’s main British business, Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), was put into administration on Thursday afternoon after a high court judge ruled that it was insolvent and that its owner, the metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta, had no prospects of repaying debts of several hundred million pounds.The judge approved an application by the government’s official receiver, a representative tasked with winding up insolvent companies, to appoint special managers from the advisory company Teneo.A Teneo senior managing director was in court on Thursday, and made contact with Liberty Steel executives immediately after the hearing.Concerned union leaders representing SSUK’s 1,450 workers met the special managers last night, seeking assurances particularly on pay and pensions, as well as on when operations could restart at sites including Rotherham and Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire, after a year without work.

Roy Rickhuss, the general secretary of Community, the biggest steelworking union, said he had “received firm assurances” on pay and pensions.The court heard on Thursday that SSUK had only £650,000 left in its bank account, with the August payroll of £3.6m due on Friday.Gupta’s counsel had argued that he was ready to cover the payments via another company, Liberty Capital UK, although the judge, Mr Justice Mellor, said Gupta’s assurances that he could pay “are at best questionable”.The special managers have committed that workers will receive their August pay packets before the bank holiday weekend.

They also said that they will fill in unpaid employer pension contributions for the past year,That will remove a major source of concern for workers, who had feared losing national insurance protection next month if the company were to close,It remains unclear when the plants will restart production, although a person briefed on the talks said the special managers had given positive signals that it could happen soon,Restarting production and trying to generate cash after four years in which it lost £340m will be crucial to limiting the costs of the administration, which will be borne temporarily by the government,Rickhuss said: “This is an extremely worrying time for our members at Liberty Steel, but the government’s intervention must mark a turning point to deliver certainty for these strategically important businesses.

“Crucially, jobs must be protected throughout any restructuring and transition to new ownership.Steelworkers at Liberty Steel are highly skilled and hugely experienced.They are quite frankly irreplaceable and will be critical to delivering future success for the businesses.”Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union, said the government “must provide long-term guarantees that it will protect jobs” and be ready to run the business itself if no buyer can be found.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionThe government this week told the court via a letter that several potential buyers had already made contact to express interest in buying SSUK from administration.

The ruling removes the business from Gupta’s control, although one of his executives, Jeffrey Kabel, said that GFG would try to buy the business back out of insolvency.Gupta still retains several other UK businesses, including a pipes business in Hartlepool that HM Revenue and Customs had sought to wind up, an aluminium smelter and a steel plate mill in Scotland, and a steel coil plant in Newport, south Wales.Kabel insisted that those businesses would continue to operate, and claimed that production was ready to restart at the Scottish plate mill in Motherwell, which has also not produced anything for a year.
politicsSee all
A picture

Why Shabana Mahmood’s outlook on prisons is wrong | Letter

Shabana Mahmood’s tenure as justice secretary is more problematic than your profile suggests (Shabana Mahmood: justice secretary and rising star of the Labour party, 16 August). First, she has endorsed yet another prison-building programme, a policy that has failed so dismally for the past 200 years. If the answer to the current crisis is more prisons, then she, like her predecessors, is asking the wrong question.Second, she has said prisons should be regarded as being of “national importance”. Why should they be seen as more important than developing welfare-oriented, radical alternatives to custody, or abolishing the structural inequalities that are central to who is criminalised and imprisoned?Third, the profile mentions that her plans include chemical castration for sex offenders

1 day ago
A picture

Action to tackle number of asylum seekers coming to UK is important step to ‘restoring order’, says Cooper – as it happened

The home secretary has said the government’s action to tackle the number of asylum seekers coming to the UK had been an important step to “restoring order”.Responding to new immigration statistics, Yvette Cooper said Labour had overseen increased numbers of returns of asylum seekers not granted asylum and pointed to the reduced spending on asylum.According to the PA news agency, Cooper said:We inherited a broken immigration and asylum system that the previous government left in chaos. Since coming to office we have strengthened Britain’s visa and immigration controls, cut asylum costs and sharply increased enforcement and returns, as today’s figures show.The action we have taken in the last 12 months – increasing returns of failed asylum seekers by over 30%, cutting asylum costs by 11%, reducing the backlog by 18% and our forthcoming plans to overhaul the failing asylum appeal system – are crucial steps to restoring order and putting an end to the chaotic use of asylum hotels that we inherited from the previous government

1 day ago
A picture

Stella Creasy and Richard Tice call for scrutiny over which EU laws UK ditches

Stella Creasy and Richard Tice are pushing for Labour to allow a Brexit scrutiny committee to be formed in parliament, after the Guardian revealed environmental protections had been eroded since the UK left the EU.The Labour and Reform UK MPs argue that there is no scrutiny or accountability over how Brexit is being implemented. Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow and chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, said the UK needed a “salvage operation” to clear up the environmental and regulatory havoc caused by Brexit.The analysis by the Guardian and the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) has found that since Brexit the EU has brought forward 28 new, revised or upgraded pieces of environmental legislation that the UK has not adopted, and the UK has actively chosen to regress by changing four different pieces of legislation including on protected habitats, pesticides and fisheries.Creasy said the prime minister, Keir Starmer, needed to move more quickly to repair relations with the EU and realign on environmental law

2 days ago
A picture

Labour-run councils consider legal challenges to asylum hotels

Labour-run councils are considering legal challenges to stop hotels from housing asylum seekers after a landmark ruling prompted officials to consider increasing the use of former military sites as emergency accommodation.Wirral and Tamworth councils said they are exploring high court injunctions to remove claimants after the Conservative-run authority in Epping Forest won a temporary high court injunction to remove people from the Bell Hotel.The developments come after the Home Office minister, Dan Jarvis, said the government is looking at alternative options if there is a flurry of successful challenges from councils.Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is determined to stick to her plan after the Epping ruling and its consequences, a source said.“We have a plan and we’re sticking to it to close asylum hotels by the end of the parliament

2 days ago
A picture

How Labour can build a stronger British economy | Letters

If Rachel Reeves is serious about ensuring that Labour’s second year in power is all about a stronger economy that rewards working people across the country (In our first year Labour fixed the foundations – now we must build a stronger economy for a renewed Britain, 13 August), she needs to rethink what your editorial called the UK’s “broken growth model” (6 August). The growth that Britain needs is an increase in economic activity that improves social and environmental infrastructure nationwide. This involves a huge increase in secure, well-paid jobs to rebuild a more resilient future economy.The last thing that is required is Reeves’s obsession with more deregulation of the City and pressuring savers into investing in the stock market. What is needed instead is a massive increase in a socially and green-oriented bond market that will provide secure returns for savers

3 days ago
A picture

Reeves leaves no stone unturned as she mulls reforms for property tax

Rachel Reeves is in favour of radical tax reform – or at least she was in 2018. “We need a radical overhaul of the tax system because our current system of wealth taxation isn’t working,” she argued in her pamphlet The Everyday Economy.Seven years later, in her second year as chancellor, Reeves appears to be returning to some of the themes in that pamphlet, especially as it relates to the UK’s convoluted and unpopular system of taxing property.The Guardian revealed on Monday the chancellor was considering scrapping stamp duty (used in England and Northern Ireland) and replacing it with an annual levy based on the value of someone’s home and the time they bought it. On Tuesday, the Times reported that Reeves was also considering imposing the UK-wide capital gains tax on higher-value primary properties, even though the prime minister, Keir Starmer, ruled out doing so before the election

3 days ago
foodSee all
A picture

There’s a lot more to lettuce than salad | Kitchen aide

4 days ago
A picture

José Pizarro’s recipe for sweetcorn, chorizo and piquillo pepper fritters

4 days ago
A picture

‘They’re not chic!’ How did BuzzBallz become the undisputed drink of the summer?

4 days ago
A picture

Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for charred corn salad with halloumi, broccoli and black beans | Quick and easy

5 days ago
A picture

Mitch Tonks’ sardine recipes, both fresh and tinned

5 days ago
A picture

The power of pulses: 15 easy, delicious ways to eat more life-changing legumes

6 days ago