The U.K. government said Tuesday that it had bought enough raw materials to keep Britain’s last steelmaking blast furnaces operating for the “coming weeks.”

The issue has dominated British politics since Saturday, when Prime Minister Keir Starmer recalled lawmakers from their spring recess so Parliament could pass emergency legislation allowing the government to take operational control of British Steel.

That move was spurred by reports that the company’s owner, China’s Jingye Group, was trying to shut down steelmaking operations by starving the plant of needed iron ore and coking coal. That raised the prospect that Britain would lose its last plant capable of making high-quality steel from scratch because once blast furnaces are shut down it is difficult to restart them. — Associated Press