The Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain was a nationalised industry, set up in 1949 by Clement Attlee's Labour government.
The Iron and Steel Act 1949 took effect on 15 February 1951, the Corporation becoming the sole shareholder of 80 of the principal iron and steel companies (reduced from the 107 proposed in the first draft of the Bill). The model differed from previous nationalisations in that it was the share capital of the companies that was acquired, not their undertakings. The reason was that companies in the iron and steel industry had wide-ranging ancillary activities, from which the core business of iron and steel making could not easily be extracted. Firms whose chief activity was manufacture of motor vehicles were specifically excluded from the scheme.