Who are the guests on Laura Kuenssberg Sunday show today? Jonathan Reynolds, Andrew Griffith and Nigel Farage to appear
The day after the highly unusual event of Parliament sitting on a Saturday, Laura Kuenssberg will be speaking to two of the main players in the British Steel debate.
On Saturday the Commons and the Lords approved emergency legislation that meant the government could compel British Steel’s owners, the Chinese firm Jingye, to keep the Scunthorpe blast furnaces running.
The Government has been negotiating with Jingye on the future of the Scunthorpe plant since it came to power last year, taking over the long-running talks between the company and the previous government.
Jingye was indicating that it would close the furnaces, by deciding to stop buying raw materials.
Now the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has issued instructions to British Steel, using the new emergency powers, although the government has not revealed what the exact instructions are.
Saturday’s legislation does not nationalise British Steel, but instead allows Mr Reynolds to instruct the company to maintain the blast furnaces, keep staff employed and continue to purchase the raw materials needed to make steel, with criminal penalties for executives if they refuse - so it gives the government overall control over the plant.
Mr Reynolds told MPs yesterday: “We could not, will not and never will stand idly by while heat seeps from the UK’s remaining blast furnaces without any planning, any due process or any respect for the consequences.”
The legislation passed without opposition but the shadow business and trade secretary, Conservative Andrew Griffith - who will also appear on Kuenssberg’s show on Sunday - was not uncritical, saying the government was seeking a “blank cheque”.
Nigel Farage of Reform UK will also be on the show. On Saturday he said his message to the government was: “Half a thank you for doing something. I was out with those Scunthorpe steel workers on Tuesday. I bet the ‘Spoons tonight in Scunthorpe will be absolutely rammed.
“I wish I could go and join them again because they were so anxious and they are proud working people. So there’s half a thank you for that but frankly you can’t work with Jingye you have got to nationalise it and try and plan a future.”
He was also dismissive of recalling Parliament on a Saturday: “They’ve done it on a Saturday because they wanted it to be dramatic and they wanted to say ‘Look we’re the Labour Party, we’re on the same side as workers’ and they are terrified of what the Reform vote is doing to the north west, the north east, areas like that. So that’s why they’ve done it.”
Given that British Steel has hogged the headlines for the last 48 hours, you could be forgiven for overlooking the fourth guest listed on the show. But that person is Andrei Kelin, the Russian ambassador to the UK. The brutal situation in Ukraine has only got more complicated since Donald Trump became president - what Kelin has to say will be fascinating, if potentially bleak.