MP flies to Italy for talks over Corus

The livelihoods of 2,000 workers and a further 1,000 contractors at the Corus site in Redcar, east Cleveland, were put at risk earlier this month when a consortium of four international companies reneged on a ten-year agreement to buy 78 per cent of the steel it produces.

On Friday, Redcar MP Vera Baird will fly to Mantua, in Italy, after she was invited to meet steel tycoon and consortium leader Antonio Marcegaglia.

She will outline the consequences of the consortium pulling out of the contract and invite him to visit the UK to meet Corus bosses.

Mrs Baird said: “My aim is to get him to agree to come back to talks with Teesside Cast Products.

I am pleased that he has written back so quickly and asked me to go there.

“In fact, he offered to meet me last Friday but this coming Friday is the earliest we can get together.

I think that as a matter of common sense, such a businessman would not be wasting his time and mine if he had turned his back on Teesside irreversibly, once and for all.

“There are a number of possible ways we could renew good relations, and although I have a preferred option in my mind, it is not up to me to ask for a specific outcome.

“The two business heads need to sort this out and I want to get them talking about it. Senor Marcegaglia has never ended the memorandum of understanding that he may buy the plant with Dongkuk, a Korean consortium partner, and that could be one way forward.”

Corus steelworkers were among thousands of protestors who marched through Birmingham at the weekend to draw the Government’s attention to the struggling manufacturing industry.

The workers travelled to the Midlands from Teesside Cast Products as they sought help to keep the plant open.

Mrs Baird added: “Marcegaglia have had good profit from our excellent steel and our industrious and inventive workforce and that combination can take off again.”

No one from Corus was available for comment yesterday.