and i think monsieur barnier, my old friend, is on the way out. what does all this mean for france? and indeed perhaps for the eurozone as well? but before all of that, let's get the news with lewis mckenzie . with lewis mckenzie. >> thank you very much, nigel. good evening. it's just after 7:00. here are your latest headunes 7:00. here are your latest headlines from the gb newsroom. well, as you've just been hearing, the french government is on the verge of collapse as the french prime minister, michel barnier, is expected to lose a no confidence vote. the vote was sparked after fierce opposition to mr barnier's proposed budget for next year. he pushed ahead with using special powers to force through the budget, having failed to receive support from mps. that decision angered the left wing alliance new popular front and marine le pen's right wing national rally . we're expecting national rally. we're expecting the results of that vote within the results of that vote within the next few minutes . and some

the next few minutes. and some more breaking news for you now. the ceo of unitedhealthcare, bnan the ceo of unitedhealthcare, brian thompson, was reportedly shot and killed in new york city. mr thompson, who had been the chief executive of wearing a face mask, fled the scene , with a manhunt currently scene, with a manhunt currently ongoing. new york city police commissioner jessica tish says this does not appear to be a random act of violence. it appears the suspect was lying in wait for several minutes . the wait for several minutes. the tories bid to overturn labour's controversial farmers inheritance tax rate has failed after being thrown out in the commons today. >> the ayes to the right of 181. the noes to the left, 339. >> the conservatives had tabled a motion to condemn the tax, but after a vote in parliament it

failed by 339 votes to 181. labour had faced internal division, however, over the vote, with some of sir keir starmer's own mps vowing to not break their word on their party's manifesto promise not to introduce changes to agricultural property relief. the government amendment was accepted without the need for a formal vote. police in germany have carried out a major series of dawn raids targeting people smugglers who who bring migrants to the uk in small boats. more than 500 officers have launched operations in several cities, with the uk authorities supporting the crackdown. the smugglers are accused of facilitating deadly channel crossings from france to britain. the investigation is being led by france, but the uk is closely involved as crossings continue to surge. over 20,000 migrants have reached the uk since labour took office in july , since labour took office in july, now coming to a chimney near

you.the now coming to a chimney near you. the real face of father christmas has been revealed. a new research study has reconstructed the face of saint nicholas, who was an early christian saint whose reputation for gift giving inspired the dutch folk figure of sinterklaas, who later became the festive figure we know and love today . well, those are your love today. well, those are your latest gb news headlines for now. i'm lewis mackenzie. more from me in an hour's time. and now it's back to nigel. >> good evening. this is a very sad story. it's the story of british steel manufacturing. we go back half a century to the early 1970s. we were producing about 30 million tonnes a year of primary steel. you know, the stuff we use in tanks and warships, construction and very much else. since then, the industry, in terms of jobs, has declined by over 90%. and we're

now in terms of primary steel, just got two blast furnaces left up in scunthorpe. the ones in south wales, of course, going through the process of closing down pretty much as we speak. and we're now producing two 3 million tonnes of steel every yeah million tonnes of steel every year. is this because we don't use steel anymore? no, we're using as much. if not more steel than we ever did. we're just not making it here. and the primary cause of our problem are insane energy prices. because of net zero policies adopted by the last few governments. our industrial electricity is the most expensive of any country in the world, and that puts us at a massive handicap. the other big problem has been china. china flooded the market with steel just a few years ago, massively overproducing selling much of it at a loss. but in doing so, actually shutting out many other of the western manufacturers. and i used to work in that

industry. i know a fair bit about it. well, a couple of years ago we sold what was left of british steel to a chinese company, and lo and behold, they are now demanding a vast amount of money to build electric arc furnaces. well, that's all well. and good, but what an electric arc does is it takes secondary steel and it recycles it. and yes, it produces steel. but the problem is it can't be used for the kind of military hardware that i talked about earlier. the other problem with electric arc furnaces is they use not coal , furnaces is they use not coal, but vast amounts of electricity. and i've explained that problem already. so i wonder, can the steel industry or can actually any heavy manufacturing now survive in our country? give me your thoughts farage. gb news. com. i'm joined by kwasi kwarteng, former conservative member of parliament and chancellor, and lloyd russell—moyle, former labour mp. lloyd, the point i'm making there is we're still using the

stuff. in fact , if this stuff. in fact, if this government goes ahead with many of its infrastructure projects , of its infrastructure projects, we're going to need huge amounts of steel. this is a tragic tale. should it now be nationalised? >> well, it is a tragic tale. i am more unique on the left that i don't really believe in nationalisation, but i do believe in corporatisation. or where you put it into trust. a bit like kind of a waitrose style kind of thing. i think nationalisation, you just end up getting bureaucrats running businesses down. but i do think that there is a solution or for example, governments holding golden shares to stop businesses going. i think that those opfions going. i think that those options need to be considered very strongly and almost consider it that what happens is it is owned by the government, but you lease it out to other companies to run it. for example, all those options are needed. but what we need to do is exactly what you have described, the problem, these underlying problems. so for example, immediately the government should be commissioning, in my view, 2 or 3 nuclear power stations next to some of these industrial hubs. absolutely. and they should be

just saying we're going to do that. the space is there in those industrial areas. we know we've got the technology because we're building two already. let's build 2 or 3 more. and so that means you immediately will see a longer term plan, and the government will need to subsidise it in the meantime before it comes on board. but you can see a way out of it at the moment. without that industrial plan, there is no way out of this. >> i get that. and yet, kwasi, when it comes to making decisions about nuclear energy, we've done nothing for about a quarter of a century. i would say yes, there have been two commissioned, but beyond that, we haven't done anything for about 50 years. we've got ageing stock. >> so the issue with nuclear was that we discovered the curse of oil . actually, it was because we oil. actually, it was because we discovered north sea oil effectively in the 70s, because if you go back to the 60s, we had the best civil nuclear in the world. we had about 25 sites where we had nuclear power, and then we discovered oil. and it's in nigel lawson's book, you know, great guy that he was. he said, well, why spend money on nuclear when it's so much cheaper to get oil and gas out of the north sea? but of course, 50 years on, we realise that actually we should have spent

more money on nuclear power. but with regard to. >> but the problem we've got and you know, i'm going back to this point. sure. the most expensive electricity prices for manufacturers in the world, but that's because we refuse to subsidise it. >> i mean, i had these debates in government. no no no no no no no no no. [10 [10 110. >> no no no. >> it's absolutely no , no, it's >> it's absolutely no, no, it's absolutely true. that is just not true, is it? it is true. we have made our electricity more expensive through renewables. >> it's not all about renewables, really. if we had if we had a system where we wanted to subsidise energy for industrial uses, we could do that. the treasury could do that. >> want to subsidise the energy? i want to produce cheap energy because there's no country in the world we're talking about steel. >> there's no country in the world that produces steel on a on a kind of market basis. every steel industry in the industrialised world is subsidised. do you not? or protected? do you not to some degree. >> kwasi kwasi. >> kwasi kwasi. >> do you not accept that's what they all do. >> successive to this successive labour and conservative governments through expensive energy, have taken out hundreds of thousands of well—paid

manufacturing jobs. >> so i agree that the cost of energy is too high. where i disagree with you is that i don't think there's a market based solution. if you look at germany, if you look at the us, if you look at china , they all if you look at china, they all talk. the chinese produce this stuff at a great loss. i think that's. that's not commercial. >> i get that. given where we are today, given we just got the scunthorpe site producing primary steel . primary steel. >> that's it, that's it. >> that's it, that's it. >> yes. everything else is gone . >> yes. everything else is gone. whichever way you cut this, it is a vital strategic. so we need to. >> we need. i'm afraid the government has to use uk plc money balance sheet to protect the industry . because we've the industry. because we've looked at this and give it to the chinese. no , we don't have the chinese. no, we don't have to give it to who now own the plant. we don't have to give it to the chinese. well, to me, the chinese are playing an obvious game. tata basically held the government to ransom, got their money, and the chinese are thinking, well, if tata can do this in port talbot, why can't we do this? >> the conservatives actually nationalised british steel. if you remember briefly for ten

years, but it was only very briefly, briefly, so that they could float it back onto the market. but what they did is they sold it without any golden shares, without any proper protection. so what needs to happen, actually, i think, is that you almost need to play the chinese bluff, but be very clear that we will step in and to make sure it continues producing the fundamental furnace will not shut, but we will not subsidise a foreign company to be able to through the back door. but there aren't any british companies undermine british. >> well, what are you talking about? if you look at steel there isn't there isn't a single british or very few. i mean, the sheffield forgemasters, there are a handful scale ones. there are a handful scale ones. there are small scale ones. but if you look at the big sites, they're all foreign owned. yes. i mean port talbot. >> what you can do is you can say we will own the site. we look for leases for you to run it, and we will provide you some money to run that, but it will not be for great profit. that undermines british. but at the same time you need to put border adjustments in. you can't allow cheap steel that's been dumped in border adjustments. >> okay, okay. so you're talking now tariff basically . now tariff basically. >> but that's that's that's with

the whole green agenda actually thatis the whole green agenda actually that is important. it is important. but unless you put proper border adjustments in. but that will just increase the cost of the green agenda. all you do is you export jobs out of this country and you have people. >> well, here's the irony. here's the irony. i mean, i remember, you know, when redcar closed in 2015, a lot of people were celebrating because it means that our co2 output has been drastically reduced and that's all money. and then in india, the steel gets produced and then and the goods get shipped back here. i mean, the whole thing is nuts. >> okay. but look, so, so where i disagree with you, we've got to drill down. you're not going to drill down. you're not going to have a steel industry in this country without subsidy or without government support. because the reality is, if you look across the g7, every single one of those countries, they don't have a god given right to produce steel. and it's not it's not like the old days where everything was the market and all that sort of stuff. they are protected. they're protecting these industries as strategic industries because they want to be able to make battleships and all the rest of it. >> and do you believe military hardware kwasi do you believe

that primary steel production is a key? i've always believed that within government, when i was secretary of state for bays, i argued that all the time and actually boris was was very supportive of it. >> there were voices in treasury that were more sceptical because they believed in sort of global free trade, but which i do to an extent. but there are key strategic assets the americans would never rely on a global supply chain to produce steel. they would never do that. and most other countries in the g7 don't. we are the most liberal with a small l on that. but as i say to you and a lot of my kind of right wing, conservative free trade friends, i said, there's no steel industry in the world that doesn't have government support. >> quasi, even if i take that point, i still say, you know, that actually net zero was given them very expensive electricity. what's going to happen here, lloyd , do you think? how does lloyd, do you think? how does this play out in the next few weeks? >> the government has to . and >> the government has to. and we'll have to intervene. yes. what i think they need to do is make sure they don't end up being taken to the cleaners by the chinese here, and i think

that they will need to be some readjustment in the structural ownership of what is called british steel. now, that might be full nationalisation, i suspect if it was full, nationalisation will only be temporary. and then what you will need to do is move towards a longer term structural plan that might mean a set of holding companies. it might mean a kind of cooperative where you have the users of the steel holding shares in the production of this. if you've got a government, there are many options. >> you've got a government. the only issue i have with your proposal is that if you have a government golden share, where essentially the government controls the entity . why would controls the entity. why would the private sector want to co—invest with that? >> well , with ba, why would they >> well, with ba, why would they do that? it depends on what the terms of the systems have been very successful. and we have a golden share. >> no, no, no i think there is there are ways it could be done. it's a british company. >> so, so in this instance it's very likely that it'll be foreign capital. let me ask you a question that will will come in and that's a different thing. >> let me ask you a question . >> let me ask you a question. kwasi. you know, if in the last government, you know, you had a very, very senior position

within it, if you were arguing that steel is strategic, and if bofis that steel is strategic, and if boris johnson also, as you said earlier, why on earth did you sell british steel to a chinese company? >> so we did that because the, the other alternative was that we would just run it ourselves. and as russell said earlier, if you think there were no other buyers, if there were no other buyers, if there were no other buyers at that price, no, there were none. and if you think that so it was an immediate price decision rather than a long term strategic decision. >> yeah. no no no. but look. >> yeah. no no no. but look. >> well yeah. well one time you're saying it's important a strategic asset. >> it is. you're saying it was a binary choice. you can either run it in the private sector and sometimes that will mean foreign caphal sometimes that will mean foreign capital. and in large parts of our industry, steel industry, that does mean foreign capital. or you can have a bunch of bureaucrats run it. that was that was the choice. >> and you can you can you can get a collaboration or you can get a collaboration or you can get some tata steel, you can get some sheffield steel masters, you can get others to say, we want you to collaborate on the ownership of this. you can get some of the automotive industry and the rail industry in the real world defence industry. the government had shares in some of

this very quickly. >> you know, we couldn't get a bunch of bankers or clever bureaucrats to design the perfect structure that you've described, because we had to act in the moment. i wasn't a government minister at the time, but i do remember that these decisions have to be done very quickly. >> i tell you what, guys, we can debate models . we can debate debate models. we can debate structures. i'm not budging from my position. we've made it much, much harder for our own industries. we've not protected our strategic assets. it is a very, very sad , tragic tale. in very, very sad, tragic tale. in a moment, we'll talk about the state of british farming. there was a vote in parliament this afternoon. the was a vote in parli