Kevin Brennan
Main Page: Kevin Brennan (Labour - Cardiff West)Department Debates - View all Kevin Brennan's debates with the Wales Office
Port Talbot Steelworks
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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David T. C. Davies
The hon. Lady asks about the money to support the town of Port Talbot. I have said already that there is £500 million to build an arc furnace that will save thousands of jobs. There is £15 million going into regenerating the town. There is £26 million of funding for the freeport, £7.5 million of funding for Launchpad and, as far as skills are concerned, £80 million from the UK Government primarily to retrain people. There is another £20 million coming in from Tata. There has not been one penny from the Welsh Government towards this endeavour. They have been able to find £120 million to spend on more Senedd Members, and £30 million to spend on 20 mph road signs, and we have just learned that they have lost £60 million, having set up a bank, but they have not been able to find one penny to support the steelworkers at Port Talbot.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Is this not just the tail end of a Government who abandoned the words “industrial strategy” a decade ago when I asked questions on this matter? Why have the Government not had the ambition and the vision to realise the potential? For example, if there were a plate mill on the site, it could produce the steel for the substructures and wind turbines that are planned to be built in the Celtic sea around the Milford Haven and Port Talbot freeport? There is no industrial strategy, there is no vision and there is no joined-upness. There are just massive sticking plasters from this Government.
David T. C. Davies
There are discussions going on about the possibility of building a plate mill on the site when the electric arc furnace is completed. There is nothing whatsoever to prevent a plate mill from being built. The hon. Gentleman will not be aware of all the discussions going on, but I say respectfully to him that a plate mill will not save 2,800 jobs. We face the loss of a significant number of jobs as a result of the decision to close down the blast furnaces, and even if a plate mill, a direct reduced iron plant or a hot zinc dip line were built on the site—all of which are reasonable things to consider—it would not solve the problem that 2,800 people are facing the loss of their jobs. That is why the £500 million for the arc furnace was so important, as was the £80 million for the transition board.