At a regional Lib Dem conference in Newcastle under Lyme Vince Cable made a number of suggestions concerning the steel crisis. He pointed out that the industrial strategy that he introduced as Business Secretary had been abandoned. He proposed that the first action to take would be for the treasury to take responsibility for the pension fund (as the coalition did with Royal Mail) which would make the industry more attractive to a potential buyer.

The government must also drop its dogmatic approach to the crisis. A short period of public ownership might be required to give an opportunity to find a longer term solution.

David’s Comment

We took banks into public ownership to save them, why not steel which is the bedrock of our industrial production as the banks are the bedrock of our financial services?

Whilst Liberal Democrats running the Business Secretariat would not have prevented the crisis, the government the government would have been more prepared to deal with it