Mr Jim Knight UK employment minister said that the government will focus on retraining steel workers facing redundancy rather than bailing out the industry.

He added that millions of pounds of support would be put into skills packages for Corus staff, including those at its site in Scunthorpe.

Mr Knight said that resources would also be concentrated on encouraging workers to stay in the area. He added that "Getting them to stay in the area and help them get skills is what we are focused on."

He said that it would not be possible for the government to bail out the steel industry as it had done with the car industry in the West Midlands. He added that "It would be great to be able to bail out all sorts of other industries, but in the end there is a limit to the amount of money the government has got to spend on the taxpayers' behalf and we can't do it for everyone, much as we would like to."

(Sourced from www.bbc.co.uk)