UNION leaders and Scottish ministers have criticised a Tory grandee's "callous" comments that it was "probably as good a time" as any for steelworkers to lose their jobs.
Energy Minister Fergus Ewing accused Lord Heseltine of "crass arrogance" and trades union said his remarks were a reminder that the Conservatives' attitudes had not changed since the days of Margaret Thatcher.
Tata Steel announced last month it will cut 900 jobs from its plant in Scunthorpe, while Dalzell in Motherwell and Clydebridge in Cambuslang are to be mothballed with the loss of 270 jobs in Scotland. It will effectively end the steel industry north of the border.
The firm said the cuts were in response to a shift in market conditions caused by a "flood" of cheap imports, particularly from China, a strong pound and high electricity prices.
Lord Heseltine, who was in Mrs Thatcher’s cabinet and was the deputy prime minister to her successor John Major, said it would have been "very expensive and questionable" for the government to seek to keep plants open, given the commercial pressures they faced.
The politician, who has been a close adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron on economic growth, told Sky News: "The market is unstoppable and invariably it wins. There is an over-supply of steel at the moment and so trying to sustain individual plants is a very expensive and questionable activity.
"Very painful for the people who suffer but on the other hand, if you are going to lose your job this is probably as good a time because the number of new jobs in the economy today is one of the most exciting features of this economy compared with many others."
But his remarks drew an angry response from SNP ministers and union leaders whose members are affected. 
Mr Ewing said: "The men and women employed at Tata on both sides of the Border have families to feed and bills to pay, and cannot, like the noble Lord, 'clock in' to pick up a few hundred quid a day at the House of Lords.
"A comment such as this displays that crass arrogance that in Scotland we associate particularly with Conservative grandees, lording it over us from the comfort of the leather benches of the House of Lords.
"His diagnosis, too, is wrong; it is not the operation of market forces that has been at work, as he asserts but precisely the opposite: an abuse of market forces through the dumping in the EU market of steel at below cost."
John Park, assistant general secretary of the steel union Community, said Lord Heseltine's comments revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of Britain's steel industry and the communities it serves.
"To suggest this is 'a good time' for steelworkers to lose their jobs not only insults those families losing their livelihoods, but fails to appreciate the devastating impact that thousands of lost jobs will have on our steel communities," he said. 
“These are highly skilled jobs in a foundation industry, it is simply not the case that those workers affected can just walk in to another well paid, skilled job in their area. 
"Rather than shrugging their shoulders on TV, the Tories should be helping to save our steel industry with an active industrial strategy."
Gary Smith, Scottish secretary of the GMB union said: “In Scotland we are heading back to an economy that is going feel like the 1980s, with rising unemployment and increasingly widespread poverty.
"So it is not surprising that we get comments like this from Michael Heseltine who was part of the Tory governments who presided over such misery in the 1980s.”
UK Business Secretary Sajid Javid has planned EU talks on how to address steel dumping.
The Scottish Government has set up a task force to support workers and explore alternatives to the mothballing of the Scottish plants but also wants to be included in EU talks to be held this week.