Corus will be accused on Monday of blunders dating back nine years that led to the devastating loss of 1,700 jobs at its mothballed steelworks.

A committee of MPs will attack the 2001 decision to close a coil plate mill – able to roll steel into a useful finished product – as evidence of fatal short-sightedness in the company’s approach to the Redcar plant.

It means the steelworks is incapable of exploiting the booming demand for steel for new technologies, including thousands of wind turbines earmarked for the North Sea, the MPs will say.

Their report will also condemn Corus for its failure to talk to potential buyers of the site, accusing it of cynically trying to block a “potential competitor” regardless of the damage to the community.

And it will launch a personal attack on Kirby Adams, the company’s chief executive, for refusing to either give evidence to the inquiry or talk to trade unions.

“Adams has been very evasive,”

a source close to the committee said.

But The Northern Echo understands the North-East Select Committee – composed entirely of Labour MPs – will pull its punches on the Government’s efforts to save the steelworks.

Last month, its chairwoman, Stockton South MP Dari Taylor, accused ministers of betraying Corus workers and demanded the nationalisation of the plant until a buyer could be found.

But the report, to be published on Monday morning in Redcar, will sidestep the issue of temporary public ownership, exposing deep division among the committee’s members.

The source said: “The report does not discuss the issue of nationalisation. In fact, some of the MPs are apoplectic with Dari for calling for it – they are spitting feathers.

“They think it doesn’t make sense, but has now left the impression that any MP not calling for nationalisation is letting the side down.”

Crucially, the report concludes there is still hope for the steelworks, if ministers step up their drive to find buyers still believed to be interested in a rescue package.

They must stand ready to offer a short-term wage subsidy to “bridge the gap” until new owners can step in, once there is confidence that a deal is achievable, the MPs say.

The source added: “But Corus also needs to make clear that it will keep a critical mass of staff on site, to ensure it can go back into production after the mothballing – to ensure that can actually happen.”

The fateful 2001 decision is understood to be the closure of the Corus mill in Lackenby, on Teesside – with the loss of 234 jobs – which ended 160 years of integrated steelmaking.

It meant unfinished steel had to be taken to Wales to be rolled into coils. Even at the time, the Government was dubbing 2002 “the year of renewables”

– signalling an approaching boom in wind turbines.

When questioning John Bolton, the managing director of Teesside Cast Products (TCP), in January, the MPs were aghast to learn that the North Sea’s wind farms would need to be supplied from plants elsewhere – plants with onsite mills.

Corus was accused of failing to invest in Teesside in the boom times, with a suggestion – disputed by the company – that it made £800m profit in four years.

The source said: “The report says it was very shortsighted to close the mill, because the Redcar slab can’t be turned into a finished product – directly causing the problems we have today.”

But the company blamed the mothballing on the decision, by a consortium of four companies, to pull out of a contract to buy 80 per cent of its steel for a decade.