A day after British unions announced the end of an industrial dispute at Tata Steel over pensions, the steel giant announced up to 720 redundancies at its speciality and bar business division in the UK, and launched a sharp attack on the UK government’s policy on energy prices and the strong pound.

Up to 720 jobs could be lost at this division, largely at its Rotherham bar business unit in northern England, the company said on Thursday, as it sought to restructure the business and focus on high-value markets, including aerospace.

Despite investing over £20 million in speciality steels, the speciality and bar business was hit by the import of commodity grade steel into the UK due to the strong pound and high electricity costs that were more than twice that in key European markets.

Energy costs Energy was one of the biggest costs for the speciality and bar division, said CEO of Tata Steel’s European division Karl Koehler in a statement, adding that the government’s measures to relieve the high taxes that fell on the energy-intensive sector had failed to be introduced.

“We are disadvantaged by the UK’s cripplingly high electricity costs”. “Foundation industries like ours urgently need a competitive business environment and a government willing to strengthen the UK manufacturing supply chains,” he said.

“This would ensure that the UK remains an attractive place to invest.”

Unions expressed their concern about the news. The Community union said it would be pushing for independent experts to study Tata Steel’s proposals and look at alternatives that could save jobs. “It’s only right and proper that Tata Steel allows sufficient time for that work to be carried out,” said the union’s general secretary, Roy Rickhuss, in a statement on Thursday.

On Thursday, British MPs debated the major challenges facing the industry, which contributes around £9.5 billion a year to the economy. The issues raised included energy levies, dumping of steel on the European markets from outside the EU, and low UK demand, which remains 75 per cent off pre-recession levels, according to MP Tom Blenkinsop, who led the debate.

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