Good Morning Britain was halted on Wednesday (October 8) as a star made a “catastrophic” news announcement.

During today’s edition of the hit ITV programme, hosts Susanna Reid and Ed Balls updated viewers on the latest news from across the UK and around the world.

They were joined in the studio by Laura Tobin, who delivered regular weather forecasts, while Charlotte Hawkins handled the rest of the day’s news.

Later in the programme, Charlotte shared “devastating” news about the UK steel industry, which could be facing its “biggest ever crisis”.

“Union leaders say plans by the EU to hit the UK steel industry with import tariffs of fifty percent could have a catastrophic impact. The European Union is also cutting the amount of steel imports by half,” she revealed.

ITV Good Morning Britain halted as star makes 'catastrophic' news announcement

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Charlotte Hawkins shared “devastating” news(Image: ITV)

 

“The Prime Minister’s promised strong support for the UK steel industry, which currently sends eighty percent of its exports to Europe.”

Charlotte then handed over to Nitya Rajan, who was reporting live from British Steel’s Scunthorpe Plant, which employs more than 2,500 people.

“There’s no doubt among the leaders here just how disruptive these plans will be to the entire sector and that’s for two reasons why they’ve expressed their concerns,” Nitya explained.

“One is that the sector’s already on its knees, it’s battling high energy prices and tariffs. And the second reason, and this is the biggest one, is because the EU as a whole block is the most important export for British steel.

“What the EU are doing is that they’re doubling tariffs for British steel, as well as saying that they are going to import less steel overall.”

Nitya Rajan shared an update live from Scunthorpe

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Nitya Rajan shared a news update live from Scunthorpe(Image: ITV)

The correspondent continued: “That’s primarily to protect their own industry, but what that will do for us here is that it will leave workers directly linked to the steel industry, and also supply chains, hugely vulnerable with regards to their jobs.”

Peter Brennan, UK Steel’s director of trade and economics policy, then said: “If we can’t sell our steel to the EU anymore then we need to find a new market, and there aren’t many markets around because there’s global overcapacity.

“So, it’s potentially devastating. If we don’t have anywhere to sell this steel then we won’t be able to continue to produce it.”

The EU is the UK’s most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3 billion and representing 78 percent of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets.