Nearly 1,200 jobs have been cut at Tata Steel's plants in Scunthorpe and Lanarkshire, the company has announced.

A total of 900 jobs are to go in Scunthorpe, while 270 will be lost in Scotland.

Plant mills in Scunthorpe, Dalzell and Clydebridge will be mothballed, while one of the two coke ovens at the Scunthorpe works will be closed.

Tata Steel stated the closures are due to a shift in market conditions caused by a flood of cheap imports, particularly from China.

The announcement follows administrators being appointed to parts of Caparo Industries' steel operations yesterday, while the UK's second-largest steelmaker, SSI, made 2,200 redundancies.

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Karl Koehler, Chief Executive of Tata Steel's European operations, said: "I realise how distressing this news will be for all those affected. We have looked at all other options before proposing these changes.

"We will work closely with affected employees and their trade union representatives. We will look to redeploy employees, wherever possible, and minimise employee hardship.

"The UK steel industry is struggling for survival in the face of extremely challenging market conditions. This industry has a crucial role to play in rebalancing the UK economy, but we need a fairer system to encourage growth. The European Commission needs to do much more to deal with unfairly traded imports – inaction threatens the future of the entire European steel industry."

(LM/MH)