Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of Liberty House Group, has met with Secretary of State Javid in London today to discuss the way forward for Tata Steel UK, ahead of Mr Javid's meeting with Tata Steel in India.

“I am pleased to report that we had a positive meeting today. The UK government appears highly supportive and is proactively engaged in finding a long-term solution. We have also actively engaged with the Welsh government and again we are encouraged by their approach.

"The next step is for Tata to define the formal sales process and request indications of interest from potential buyers. We await further details on this and then will assess our own next step.

"Liberty has already proven its ability to build value from UK steel assets with our acquisition of our Newport Steel plant, Midlands engineering operations and, most recently, in Scotland where we acquired mills from Tata.

Everyone is very motivated to find a solution.”