George Osborne was robust in his defence of measures to provide tax relief for energy-intensive industries. He told MPs in his Autumn Statement: “We are not going to save the planet by shutting down our steel mills, aluminium smelters and paper manufacturers.
Chancellor, the smelters have already disappeared. Well, almost.
At one stage, Britain had three smelters producing more than 300,000 tonnes a year of material that seems permanently tagged as “the metal of tomorrow”.
The first, at Invergordon, closed 30 years ago after an unsuccessful struggle by what was then British Aluminium (BA) to demonstrate the Highlands was capable of supporting big business as well as smaller hydro-powered smelters.
The second, at Anglesey, originally operated by RTZ (now Rio Tinto) and Kaiser, closed two years ago after failing to re-negotiate a “cheap” power contract.
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