Taxpayer bill for saving Scunthorpe steel furnaces could top £1.5bn by 2028, auditor says

Blast furnaces at Scunthorpe are costing £1.3m a day to run, the NAO says. Photograph: Darren Staples/PA

The cost of keeping the UK’s last remaining blast furnaces going at British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant could exceed £1.5bn by 2028 if it continues at its current rate, according to the government’s spending watchdog.

Ministers took the plant into public control in April last year, after its Chinese owner – industrial firm Jingye – threatened to shut down the loss-making site.