On Thursday, the steelmaker, owned by Sanjeev Gupta, said it would suspend manufacturing at its plant in Newport, south Wales and turn it into a distribution centre.

The company will make idle a site at nearby Tredegar and another at West Bromwich, West Midlands, and cut back production at its plant in Rotherham, Yorkshire.

Steelworkers in all four plants are expected to be affected.

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Liberty Steel announced its plans amid "unviable" market conditions, citing challenges such as "high energy costs" and "imports from countries without the same environmental standards”.

The steelmaker said it will forge a viable way forward to provide a safety net to affected employees and help safeguard jobs in the wider workforce of 1,900 permanent employees, and up to 5,000 including contractors.

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Jeffrey Kabel, Chief Transformation Officer for Liberty Steel Group said: “We remain committed to our longer-term growth plans in the UK including our plan to grow Rotherham into a 2 million tonne green steel hub.

“While our action is expected to regrettably impact the roles of some of our workforce we will provide a level of guaranteed salary and out placement opportunities through our unique Workforce Solutions programme as an alternative to redundancy."

Liberty Steel companies in the UK have been struggling since the collapse of Greensill Capital, which was formerly a financial backer of Gupta Family Group (GFG).

The Unite union claims the company failed to consult in any way with the trade unions at the company.

Unite national officer Harish Patel said: “Unite will be demanding forensic scrutiny of all aspects of Liberty’s plans following the announcement of these potentially massive redundancies. We will utilise every element of the union’s power to challenge these plans and their consequences for the long-term future of the Tredegar, Newport and West Bromwich sites.

“The government has also a case to answer: Steel manufacturing is a sector of critical national importance, both for the nation’s self-sufficiency and the thousands of jobs it supports. Ministers must come up with a plan to solve the astronomical energy prices that are crippling the sector. The ball is in their court on this crisis – they cannot walk on by again.”