Network Rail has struck a lifeline £500million deal with British Steel to help save the Scunthorpe blast furnaces – but the industry is still facing punitive 25 per cent US tariffs.

The agreement, for British Steel to produce 337,000 tonnes of rails over five years, safeguards 2,700 jobs. 

But the industry remains in peril unless the Government can finalise its trade deal with the Trump administration and have tariffs removed. 

Otherwise, the charge would rise from its interim level of 25 per cent – covering UK steel imports while trade deal discussions are ongoing – to the 50 per cent levied on all other countries. 

And the rail-supply deal follows outcry after the state-owned track and infrastructure company put a £140million steel contract for overhead electrical installations out for tender on the open market last month, as revealed in The Mail on Sunday.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, who yesterday visited Scunthorpe steelworks to finalise the deal, said it ‘truly transforms the outlook for British Steel’.