SNP ministers should intervene and nationalise two Scottish steelworks threatened with closure, Alex Salmond has declared.
About 400 jobs are expected to be lost this week when Tata announces its definitive plans for two Scottish plants, Clydebridge in Cambuslang and Dalzell in Motherwell.
Although the company has not confirmed the closures, Tata is expected to announce the end of steel-making in the two Scottish centres as part of a wider UK closedown, possibly as early as tomorrow.
Tata says it has been struggling to cope with cheaper steel imports and the strength of the pound. Across the UK, 1,200 jobs are expected to be lost. Nicola Sturgeon has already promised to set up a task force to try to save the jobs of those employed by Tata in Scotland, and she has vowed to “leave no stone unturned” to secure a future for steel-making in Scotland.
But yesterday, her predecessor as first minister went further and said he favoured direct intervention and, if necessary, nationalisation of the two plants.
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Mr Salmond said he was an “interventionist” and steel-making should be preserved by direct Scottish government action because it was a “strategic asset” for the country. The Scottish government had already intervened successfully to save shipbuilding and an airport, he suggested, so it could do the same with steel production.
Mr Salmond said: “We [the Scottish government] intervened on Ferguson’s shipyard, and that is now booming, incidentally. That is the last commercial shipyard on the Clyde and it is now undergoing a period of great expansion, and that is within the space of just over a year.
“We intervened in Prestwick Airport, we nationalised that because we thought it was a strategic asset. Now it has some way to go before it finds its way back to profitability, but I think the actions that the Scottish government took were well justified by the circumstances because they were protecting strategic assets of the country.”
John Park, assistant general secretary of the Community union, which represents the Dalzell and Clydebridge workers, also said he hoped the Scottish government would intervene.