'This is an exceptional and unique situation,' says business secretary as he opens debate Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds opens the debate by saying: "We meet under exceptional circumstances to take exceptional action in what are exceptional times." He says they have not made the decision to recall parliament "lightly", but that he is "genuinely grateful" that MPs have returned to pass "emergency legislation that is unequivocally in our national interest". Reynolds goes on to say that the government has been "negotiating in good faith with British Steel's owners, Jingye", and has "worked tirelessly" to agree a deal with "sensible, common sense conditions to protect the workforce, to protect taxpayers' money, and create a commercially viable company". He claims Jingye wanted "an excessive" amount of support to keep the Scunthorpe plan running, and it became clear this week that the company was going to refuse to purchase the materials required to keep the plant running". "The company would therefore have irrevocably and unilaterally closed down primary steelmaking at British Steel," he says. Reynolds goes on to say that the government even offered to purchase the raw materials to keep the plant running, but Jingye wanted vast sums of money without any conditions preventing the funding or assets being transferred to China. "Even if I had agreed to these terms, I could not guarantee that further requests for money would not then be made," he says, which means "doing nothing is not an option" for the government. The senior minister describes this as "an exceptional and unique situation", and so this emergency bill is a "proportionate and necessary step" (read more about the bill's contents here). Full nationalisation would be a far more complicated process, and he argued that there is not enough time to pass one before the blast furnaces are shut down.