The raw materials needed to keep British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant operating have been paid for, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has said – but she would not be drawn on when they would arrive.

Officials have been racing to obtain enough iron and coal to keep the furnaces at the UK’s last virgin steel-producing plant going – because if they cool down too much, the molten iron solidifies and blocks the furnaces.

It comes after ministers rushed through an emergency bill on Saturday to take over the facility after talks with Chinese owners Jingye broke down.

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Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the government had been prompted into action after learning that the firm had stopped ordering new raw materials to keep the plant running and planned on selling off supplies it already had.

Speaking to reporters from the site in Scunthorpe on Monday afternoon, Ms Rayner said: “We’ve got the raw materials, they’ve been paid for, and we’re confident that the furnaces will continue to fire.”

Asked whether the materials would be arriving on Monday, the deputy PM only said: “As I say, we’ve got the raw materials, and everything’s in place, and we’re confident that the furnaces will continue.”

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

He said there were “limits to what I can say” because there were “commercial operations going on here”.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said there were two ships carrying materials docked at Immingham port in North Lincolnshire, with “a third ship which is currently en route off the coast of Africa, which will be making its way to the UK”.

Ministers have faced questions over why they are only just acting now, given unions warned earlier this month that Jingye decided to cancel future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.

Parliament was recalled on Saturday so that emergency legislation could be passed bringing the steelworks into effective government control and officials were on site as soon as the new legislation came into force.

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Ms Rayner would not be drawn on the long-term plan, nor whether other buyers were interested or whether it would come down to nationalisation.

She said: “We’ve taken nothing off the table. We’d like to see private investment going forward… we’re confident of the future of British Steel.”

‘No evidence of sabotage’

Ms Rayner said the government “hasn’t seen any evidence” of sabotage, when asked about suggestions that Jingye might have purposefully attempted to shut the blast furnaces down.

The Chinese company stepped in with a deal to buy British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant out of insolvency five years ago.

Mr Reynolds told MPs on Saturday that the intention of Jingye… “was to cancel and refuse to pay for existing orders” which would have “irrevocably and unilaterally closed down primary steelmaking at British Steel”.

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

Commenting on the situation for the first time on Monday, a Chinese embassy spokesperson urged the British government to act with “fairness, impartiality and non-discrimination… to make sure the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese company be protected”.

“It is an objective fact that British steel companies have generally encountered difficulties in recent years,” it added.

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.

Union officials have said they are “hopeful” that the materials required at the North Lincolnshire works will arrive within the next 48 hours.

However Andy Prendergast, national secretary at the GMB, said there still needs to be “a deal to be done for the future” and their preference is “nationalisation of what is a key national asset”.

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

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.”

He may not be the one to sit down with Vladimir Putin, but Keith Kellogg, President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, summed up the horror of Sunday’s ballistic missile strikes on Sumy succinctly.

“Today’s Palm Sunday attack by Russian forces on civilian targets in Sumy crosses any line of decency,” he said.

“As a former military leader, I understand targeting and this is wrong.”

Ukraine war latest: At least 34 people killed

Vladimir Putin gave up on decency long before he started this war.

What he seems to be risking by attacks of this scale is Donald Trump‘s patience.

He does not seem to mind if strikes like this make a mockery of US attempts to bring the two warring parties to the table.

He does not seem to care if he alienates his US counterpart, who has been strangely predisposed to fawn over him to date.

Perhaps he is raising the stakes as high as he can to illustrate his strength of hand: Strikes on civilians damage Ukrainian morale – even if they are hardly battlefield wins – and on the battlefield, he is pushing ahead and does not want to stop.

Perhaps he knows that if he keeps up his military momentum, President Trump will tire of a conflict he realises he cannot solve and let the matter slip while staying true to his MAGA-economic priorities by letting funds for Ukraine dry up.

Perhaps he thinks President Trump is so keen on a rapprochement with Russia, on the big Putin-Trump bilateral, that the details, the civilian deaths along the way, will all be by-the-by when that long-sought photo-op finally happens.

Whatever it is, President Putin seems to be in no rush to get things settled.

His spokesman told a Russian state reporter on Sunday that talks were under way at several levels but that “of course, it is impossible to expect any instant results”.

Withdrawing his troops would get instant results. But that is not what Vladimir Putin wants.

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His war economy is working for him, and he has the attention of the one country he considers a worthy adversary, the United States.

In the meantime, this attack reinforces why President Zelenskyy’s plea for air defence systems is his top priority. And why a ceasefire cannot come soon enough.

Katy Perry has blasted off to space along with five other women in the first all-female space crew in over sixty years. 

The Firework singer lifted off from West Texas on a Blue Origin rocket before becoming the first artist to sing in space.

Flying alongside Perry were author Lauren Sanchez, the fiancee of Blue Origin owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, journalist and TV presenter Gayle King, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, former rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn.

The star-studded crew were supported on the ground by family and friends including Kris Jenner, Khloe Kardashian and Oprah Winfrey, who said she had “never been more proud” of her friend, King.

“There’s only one time all the women are going up for the first time,” Oprah said she told her friend when urging her to go on the flight, telling her she’d regret turning down the opportunity.

Weightlessness

The crew were weightless for just four minutes after passing the Karman line, a 62-mile-high boundary that is internationally recognised as the boundary of space.

They could be heard screaming as they began to feel weightless, and told each other to look at the incredible views of the moon.

As the crew were leaving space, Perry started to sing What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.

Asked why she chose that song, she said: “It’s not about me or about me singing my songs, it was about a collective energy in there.

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“It’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it.”

She confirmed she will be writing a song about the experience.

The descent

Three parachutes on their capsule opened up to bring them safely back down to Earth and just before they landed, an air cushion blew a cloud of dust up in the west Texas desert, giving a dramatic-looking touchdown.

“Excited as I am, I’ll be very glad when we come back down,” said self-confessed nervous flier King before liftoff.

When she exited the shuttle, the presenter kissed the floor and said: “Thank you, Jesus”.

She said it was “oddly quiet” in space, and it reminded her that people needed to “do better and be better” on Earth.

“It was the most incredible experience of my life to be up there and see such vast darkness in space and look down on our planet,” said Flynn, through tears.

“The moon was so beautiful and I feel like that was a special gift just for me,” she said.