ITV Good Morning Britain star shares sad news after 'biggest ever crisis'

A Good Morning Britain star shared sad news on Wednesday (October 8) after the "biggest ever crisis".

During this morning's episode of the popular ITV show, presenters Susanna Reid and Ed Balls brought viewers up to speed with the latest developments from Britain and beyond.

They were accompanied in the studio by Laura Tobin, who provided regular weather updates, whilst Charlotte Hawkins took care of the remaining news stories.

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Later in the show, Charlotte shared "devastating" news regarding the UK steel sector, which could be confronting 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 disclosed, reports Wales Online.

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

Charlotte then passed over to Nitya Rajan, who was broadcasting 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 clarified.

"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."

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 remains Britain's most crucial export destination for steel, valued at nearly £3 billion and accounting for 78 percent of steel products manufactured in the UK for international markets.

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays on ITV1 and ITVX at 6am