Port Talbot Steelworks
Debate between Mike Kane and David T C Davies(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
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David T. C. Davies
We were very clear that while the arc furnace was being built, we wanted to make absolutely certain that all those other plants around Wales were able to receive product to finish, and Tata has been very clear that that will happen. It will have to bring it in from elsewhere over the next two to three years, but that will happen. There will therefore not be the impact that the hon. Gentleman is rightly concerned about.
Of course, that is possible only because of what some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues have described as a reckless deal. What would have been reckless would have been for us to see Tata in an office and say, “Okay, you’re going to make 8,000 people redundant and shut down all these sites, and there’s nothing for us to do about it.” That would have been reckless. What we actually did was to come forward with a £500 million package of taxpayers’ money, and rightly so, to support the continuation of steelmaking in Port Talbot and to ensure that all the other plants in Wales—Shotton, Trostre and Llanwern—continue to receive product during that interim period, so that we do not see significant job losses anywhere else.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
It is an increasingly dangerous world, as the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft) and the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) said, so will the Secretary of State release an impact assessment on Britain losing its sovereign capability to produce virgin steel?
David T. C. Davies
It is starting to feel a bit like groundhog day here. Can I explain again that the iron ore, the limestone and the coke are all coming in from abroad? There is no sovereign capability to make steel in the blast furnaces at Port Talbot. However, we are already producing high-quality steel in arc furnaces that is used in the defence industry. I recently met Sheffield Forgemasters, which is producing steel for nuclear submarines in an electric arc furnace in the United Kingdom.