A steel and iron industry lobby group has accused bureaucrats of a “vindictive” campaign to chase the sector out of Europe to meet European Union climate change goals.

In a mounting war of words, Eurofer claimed that Jos Delbeke, who runs the EU scheme to cap and trade carbon emissions, admitted that the booming sector would have relocated offshore within a decade of a new law cutting greenhouse gas emissions coming into effect in 2013. Mr Delbeke denied he made the remark.