Steel Industry: Wales
Debate between Gary Streeter and Nusrat Ghani(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
May I make an observation? It is helpful if the Minister can respond to one intervention before people bounce up and down for the next one. Let us take it calmly.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. That was another long intervention. I remind the hon. Lady that any reference to “you” is a reference to me. I am certainly open to further negotiations, but that does not really matter.
Ms Ghani
This is a decision for Tata to take. It has made it clear that the offers put forward by the unions are not really credible, because it does not think they enable a transition without a huge amount of losses, so they are not financially credible. However, the consultation is taking place. It is not that I just met the unions this week: I meet them regularly and obviously I attend the transition board as well. The consultation is to ensure that Tata can make the right decision, and one would hope that it does that in consultation with the unions and with their overall support, accepting that it is incredibly challenging when we are talking about any level of job losses.
Ms Ghani
We can look at the reality of a DRI plant at Port Talbot, as well as examples across the rest of the world. A DRI plant requires even fewer people. I was looking at a plant in Texas that ended up having a 2 million tonne DRI plant, and it only requires 190 jobs. It is possible to transition; the opportunity to transition is there. There is often talk of hydrogen. That technology has not been tested to the capacity needed for this particular plant or for the levels of steelmaking that we need in the UK.
Let us deal with the matter in real terms. These conversations have been going on for years. I have spoken to the hon. Member for Aberavon, who represents Port Talbot, and I know that we could have continued the conversations and had a cliff edge, with Tata leaving; or we could have come up with the biggest settlement for steel and a consultation to make sure that the least amount of jobs are impacted—and that is going to provide certainty and security for steelmaking at Port Talbot for years to come.
I fear I have run out of time.