Tata Steel: Port Talbot

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Baroness Swinburne

Wednesday 7th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord, and that is why the £100 million has been made available: £80 million of that is from the UK Government, £20 million from Tata, and the majority of it will be spent on upskilling the local population, so that they can fill the advanced manufacturing jobs we are expecting to create in that area.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, electric arc furnaces require huge volumes of electricity to be produced reliably—24 hours a day, seven days a week—and distributed by a reliable transmission system. Are the Minister and her colleagues in the Government satisfied that the necessary investment should be started—there is not much sign of it yet—in expanding the national grid by five times, and in moving from 25 gigawatts of nuclear power, our present low level, up to 50 gigawatts, which is the minimum that will be needed?

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that we need to upgrade all this infrastructure. However, the holistic view of this particular area in Wales is that we will have, I hope, one of the largest offshore floating wind platforms to facilitate plants such as the Tata arc facility, but also any of the new advanced manufacturing that will take place on that site.