Last-minute efforts to keep British Steel operating are to be carried out today, as the plant races to secure a supply of raw materials.

The Department for Business and Trade said officials are working to secure supplies of materials, including coking coal, to keep British Steel operational, as well as to ensure all staff at the Scunthorpe site will be paid.

It added that setting up new supply chains was “crucial” as a fall in blast furnace temperature could risk “irreparable damage to the site, with the steel setting and scarring the machinery”.

Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray told Sky News the raw materials are “in the UK” and “nearby” the Lincolnshire site.

“There are limits to what I can say because there are commercial operations going on here, but what we need to do and what we are doing is making sure we get those raw materials into the blast furnaces to keep them going,” he said.

Companies including Tata – which ran the now-closed Port Talbot steelworks – and Rainham Steel have offered managerial support and materials to keep the Lincolnshire site running.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in a statement that “when I said steelmaking has a future in the UK, I meant it”.

“Steel is vital for our national security and our ambitious plans for the housing, infrastructure and manufacturing sectors in the UK,” he added.

“We will set out a long-term plan to co-invest with the private sector to ensure steel in the UK has a bright and sustainable future.”

Earlier this month, unions said the steelwork’s owner, Chinese company Jingye, decided to cancel future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.

It meant the Scunthorpe plant had been on course to close down by May, bit it sparked urgent calls for government intervention.

Emergency legislation was passed on Saturday bringing the steelworks into effective government control, and officials were on site as soon as the new legislation came into force.

However, the business secretary has warned that does not mean the plant is guaranteed to survive.

Appearing on Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Mr Reynolds also said he would not bring a Chinese company into the “sensitive” steel sector again.

“I don’t know… the Boris Johnson government when they did this, what exactly the situation was,” he added. “But I think it’s a sensitive area.”

Jingye stepped in with a deal to buy British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant out of insolvency in 2020, when Mr Johnson was prime minister.

The minister added that while The Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill stops short of the full nationalisation of British Steel, “to be frank, as I said to parliament yesterday, it is perhaps at this stage the likely option”.

The Conservatives accused the government of acting “too late” and implementing a “botched nationalisation” after ignoring warnings about the risk to the steelworks.

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Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said: “The Labour Government have landed themselves in a steel crisis entirely of their own making.

“They’ve made poor decisions and let the unions dictate their actions.”

A £975m deal to transform the finances of English cricket risks facing further demands for revision over proposals including one allowing the sport’s governing body to cancel The Hundred tournament in seven years time.

Sky News has obtained a revised document sent this weekend by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to prospective investors in the eight Hundred franchises – who include some of the world’s most powerful technology company executives.

The document outlines a series of changes to the ECB’s original proposals, in an attempt to persuade the competition’s new shareholders – who have collectively agreed to stump up £520m for their team stakes – to sign binding contracts within weeks.

In recent weeks, the ECB has come under pressure from many of the investors to revise proposals relating to media and sponsorship rights, future expansion of The Hundred, and governance of the tournament.

The sale of the ECB’s 49% stakes in the eight Hundred teams, including Trent Rockets and Oval Invincibles, was hailed as a landmark moment for the sport, paving the way for a vast injection of cash into English cricket at county and grassroots level.

However, one senior cricket insider cast doubt on the ECB’s timetable for signing binding agreements, scheduled for 29 April, amid continuing dissatisfaction from some stakeholders.

Another sticking point for the investors may be the inclusion of a clause that the ECB has the right to unilaterally terminate the Hundred competition after seven years.

“What happens in year eight?”, said one on Sunday.

“These investors have agreed to pay hundreds of millions of pounds with no guarantee of terminal value.”

Among the new backers of The Hundred – which is broadcast by Sky Sports, which shares a parent company with Sky News – are the Chelsea FC co-owner Todd Boehly, the billionaire Indian Ambani family and a group of tech executives including the chief executives of Google and Microsoft.

According to the document, the existing Hundred committee will be scrapped by a new body, The Hundred Board (HB), on which the ECB would cede control and hold just a third of the overall voting rights.

The HB would consist of 20 members, with four from the ECB and two from each team – but with the ECB members each carrying double voting rights.

“The HB Agreement now protects teams from future changes, meaning [the] ECB can no longer unilaterally amend the decision-making and other powers of the HB.

“Instead, any variation to the HB Agreement will require approval from a majority of investor members of the HB, two-thirds of all members of the HB, and the ECB board,” the document said.

One of the ECB’s board members will become chair of the HB, according to the document, while the governing body will also appoint the Hundred’s managing director on a minimum five-year contract.

A source close to one of the new investors questioned that arrangement on Sunday, arguing that such an arrangement risked “embedding failure” in the event of unhappiness at the competition’s administration.

The document also sets out several matters, including UK media rights arrangements for the period after 2029, which would be subject to so-called “triple trigger voting” requiring an “affirmative vote from a majority of Investor Members of the HB, two-thirds of all members of the HB and the ECB board”.

Also included on the triple-trigger list are: changes to league expansion criteria; the distribution of league expansion proceeds to ECB and The Hundred stakeholders; Material increases in payments from The Hundred and its teams to hosts and the broader ECB county ecosystem; and changes to the HB Agreement, or changes to the Framework Agreement that materially adversely affect teams.

“For the 2029 [media rights] cycle, the default position is the UK media rights will be sold on a bundled basis, with a floor valuation of £51m per year for The Hundred,” the document said.

“For each subsequent cycle, the default shifts to an unbundled sale of rights between The Hundred and the ECB’s broader UK media right package.

“For the 2029 cycle, ECB will request that UK rights bidders provide an itemized pricing allocation for The Hundred and non-Hundred rights to provide transparency on value of The Hundred.”

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The ECB document said it would only permit expansion of The Hundred in 2029 or later, and that it could only admit teams which have a purpose-built permanent stadium that does not host another franchise.

A revenue formula to protect distribution to existing teams would also be established, while new teams would be required to demonstrate that “they unlock a new fan base and complementary ticket sales”.

According to the document, the ECB has “developed a revised set of termination events that protects the ECB and other teams in extreme scenarios, also providing further protection for teams for events outside of their control:

• ECB will not unilaterally terminate The Hundred for seven years

• The ECB Member Resolution termination event has been removed

• ECB has clarified that it will not terminate the competition based on a breach by one or a select few clubs

• Termination for force majeure has been extended to require disruption over two consecutive seasons of The Hundred

• ECB’s right to terminate for “financial reasons” has been clarified to only apply in scenarios where ECB is experiencing financial challenges due to cash losses generated by The Hundred.”

“In the unlikely event the ECB decides to end its involvement in The Hundred, the ECB is committed to providing teams with an opportunity to maintain the competition independently, including using reasonable endeavours to make players, venues and a suitable playing window available to the competition,” the document states.

The ECB said it would also commit to “not launch or sanction a competing professional league for a period of 4 years”.

The ECB has also revised a set of sponsorship and player appearance proposals as part of its revised agreement.

In an effort to ensure a swift resolution to the process, the ECB told investors that those who do not sign and complete their stake purchases simultaneously would forego their right to an additional dividend.

For all investors, the governing body would provide “a £1 liability cap on all Business Warranties (given on a knowledge qualified basis) and Tax Claims”.

“The ECB will provide fundamental warranties only and will provide no other indemnities or warranties.”

An ECB spokesman declined to comment on the document on Sunday, but pointed to comments made recently by Richard Gould, the governing body’s chief executive.

“We’re just trying to work out how to maximise value from sponsorships, tickets sales and broadcast revenues,” he said.

“They’re investing a lot of money into our game and we want to make sure that pays dividends.

“We’ve got brilliant supporters for our UK domestic market through Sky, but there are probably significant opportunities in the overseas broadcast market and that’s very much something that they’re focused on but there are differences in the markets.

“We need to make sure we’ve got something which is fit for purpose across the global markets, not just a UK market.”

The appointment of the inaugural chair of English football’s new watchdog has been thrown into fresh uncertainty after Whitehall officials resumed contact with applicants who did not make it onto a final shortlist.

Sky News has learnt that the preferred candidate to chair the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) is now “unlikely” to be drawn from a group of three contenders interviewed months ago.

The search process has not been officially reopened, and insiders said the £130,000-a-year post was not expected to be readvertised.

They acknowledged, however, that a shortlist including former Aston Villa Football Club chief executive Christian Purslow would probably not produce the chosen candidate.

Sky News revealed in recent weeks that the other contenders were Sanjay Bhandari, who chairs the anti-racism football charity Kick It Out, and Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, who chaired the new parliamentary watchdog established after the MPs expenses scandal.

The delay to the appointment of the IFR’s inaugural chair will do little to dampen recent speculation that Sir Keir Starmer wants to pare back the powers of the football regulator amid a broader clampdown on Britain’s economic watchdogs.

Both 10 Downing Street and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have sought to dismiss the speculation, with insiders insisting that the IFR will be established as originally envisaged.

The establishment of the regulator, which will be based in Manchester, is among the principal elements of legislation progressing through parliament.

The Football Governance Bill has just completed its journey through the House of Lords and will be introduced in the Commons shortly, according to a DCMS spokesman.

The establishment of the regulator, which was conceived by the previous Conservative government in the wake of the furore over the failed European Super League project, has triggered deep unrest in English football.

Steve Parish, the chairman of Premier League side Crystal Palace, told a recent sports industry conference that the watchdog “wants to interfere in all of the things we don’t need them to interfere in and help with none of the things we actually need help with”.

“We have a problem that we’re constantly being told that we’re not a business and [that] we’re part of the fabric of communities,” he is reported to have said.

“At the same time, we’re… being treated to the nth degree like a business.”

Interviews for the chair of the football regulator took place in November, with a previous recruitment process curtailed by the calling of last year’s general election.

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Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, will sign off on the appointment of a preferred candidate, with the chosen individual expected to face a pre-appointment hearing in front of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee.

It forms part of a process that represents the most fundamental shake-up in the oversight of English football in the game’s history.

The establishment of the body comes with the top tier of the professional game gripped by civil war, with Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City at the centre of a number of legal cases over its financial dealings.

The government has dropped a previous stipulation that the regulator should have regard to British foreign and trade policy when determining the appropriateness of a new club owner.

“We do not comment on speculation,” the DCMS said when asked about the process to recruit a chair of the football watchdog.

“No appointment has been made and the recruitment process for [IFR] chair is ongoing.”