Tata Steel: Labour will ‘make sure’ job guarantees a part of Port Talbot deal
Labour will “make sure job guarantees” are part of negotiations with Tata Steel over its Port Talbot site, the business secretary has said.
Jonathan Reynolds said there is a “better deal available” for the site in South Wales and the wider UK steel industry, as he revealed he had already held talks with Britain’s biggest steelmaker.
Tata has closed one of two massive blast furnaces at Port Talbot and has plans to shut down the second in September.
The Conservative government pledged a £500m investment to keep the site running while Tata shifts to greener production methods.
However, 2,800 jobs would still be lost as a result, and the deal was never signed prior to the election.
The proposals have enraged the Unite Union, which held eleventh-hour talks with Tata Steel last Sunday to narrowly avoid strike action through the summer.
Reynolds said he would “make sure that job guarantees are part of the negotiations that we’re having… we have to make sure this is a transition that works for working people.”
Reynolds was speaking on BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme. “There is more money available for the steel industry under our plans for government,” he said.
“But that’s about making sure we meet this transition with the private sector together and recognise … it is a good exemplar of how we have to make sure that decarbonisation is not deindustrialisation and we’ve got to do that together.
As part of the previous government’s deal, Tata would invest £750m to build an electric arc furnace to replace one of the blast furnaces.
Reynolds said: “Blast furnaces employ more people than some of the newer technologies available, whether that is electric arc furnaces or what is called DRI, so there’s a range of things you have to understand.
“But I absolutely agree with the point that we have to make sure this is a transition that works for working people and that they’re part of that and you can’t simply give money out without guarantees in exchange for that.”
Labour has put forward a £3bn “green steel” fund for the industry over the next five years, although the figure is only reached with the inclusion of the £500m pledged to Tata Steel by the Conservative government.