PRIME Minister Gordon Brown last night joined Corus in calling on two members of the consortium who pulled out of a contract from a North-East steel plant last week, to clarify whether they will buy the factory.

Corus cannot open discussions with other potential purchasers until Marcegaglia, of Italy and Dongkuk Steel, of Korea, decide whether they intend to continue with plans to take a majority stake in the Corus Teesside Cast Products (TCP) plant in Redcar.

Last week, a four-strong international consortium, including the two firms, tore up a ten-year contract signed in 2004 to take nearly 78 per cent of the plant’s output, putting 3,000 jobs at risk.

But Marcegaglia and Dongkuk, who signed a memorandum of understanding to buy TCP in January, have still not outlined their intentions following last week’s development.

A Corus spokesman said: “We still have that memorandum of understanding on the table and the thing we urgently need is clarification from Marcegaglia and Dongkuk as to whether they are still interested in buying that majority stake.

“If they don’t clarify that, we can’t get into discussions with any other potential buyer. If they are not interested anymore they need to let us know. All of that has got to happen very soon.”

The Corus crisis, which has put 2,000 staff and 1,000 contractor jobs at risk, was raised during Prime Minister’s questions in the Commons, yesterday.

Answering a question from Stockton South MP Dari Taylor, the Prime Minister said: “We are trying urgently to talk to the companies concerned across four different countries to make the case that it is important to keep the Teesside plant open, to make the case that it is counter-productive to close and to see whether a buyer, as part of that consortium, was available.”

Mr Brown said the threat of job losses on such a scale was “an issue the whole House should be concerned about”.

He added: “This was a contract entered into by Corus with four other steel and other manufacturing operators.

“It was a contract that was supposed to last to 2015. If that contract is broken, there is going to be a high level of compensation paid.”

■ Corus Tubes, in Hartlepool, is balloting employees at two mills on whether they would accept the suspension of a bonus scheme in order to avoid potential redundancies.

There is a “significant gap”

in the order book of both mills from August until the end of the year, which could affect more than over 100 jobs.