THE lion’s share of 1.7 million tonnes of steel needed for the construction of the new HS2 high-speed rail link is being sourced from foreign companies, it has been claimed.

Dr David Moore, chief executive of the British Constructional Steelwork Association, said most of the contracts are going to European companies whose prices are subsidised by the EU by around 30 per cent.

He said: “When I actually look at the contracts that they’re letting the lion’s share of actual contracts for bridges and infrastructure actually go to European companies.

“I think there is a fairly large percentage to be allocated but the majority of those 1.7 million tonnes of steel contracts go to European companies and only 40% to UK companies.”

Dr Moore told Liam Halligan on On The Money on GB News that HS2 is the biggest infrastructure contract in Europe but the company building it seems unwilling to buy British.

“I actually rang the CEO of HS2 and he wrote back to me to say, well, there’s actually no discrimination on location,” he added.

“It’s weasel words for saying actually we can let the work to anybody, including obviously overseas companies, and that’s wrong.

“There should actually be some kind of percentage that they must actually let to Europe and UK companies.”

He added: “…it’s a double whammy, the UK government is not supporting the actual steel industry. And when we have public contracts, which are supported by taxpayers money, the majority of that is actually going to overseas companies and not UK companies.”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Spring Statement will do nothing to ease a near tenfold increase in energy costs being experienced by big British businesses, he added

“I think the Chancellor’s Spring Statement didn’t actually put anything on the energy and the cost of energy that UK companies actually use.

“Electricity prices were something like £48 per megawatt hour in 2019, now it’s close to £400.”

Dr Moore added: “And let me tell you, in terms of the actual steel of contractors, they actually have to take a risk on what the steel price will be when they put the contracts together, and the contracts they put together can actually be months in advance of actually buying the steel.

“So now actually, when the steel price increases by £250 pounds a tonne – that’s an enormous increase and it’s difficult to actually estimate that much advance.

“So a lot of them might well be running at losses in the next few months, years.”