Port Talbot steel: ‘Why is the UK so uniquely incapable of investing in our strategic future?’ – Plaid Cymru

Liz Saville Roberts MP criticises UK Government for failing to show same ambition as Germany and the Netherlands

Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, Liz Saville Roberts MP, has today (Tuesday 30 April) criticised the UK Government for being “uniquely incapable of effective investment in our strategic steel future.”

Tata Steel announced on 25 April its rejection of the multi-union report commissioned by the UK Steel Committee.

This means about 2,800 jobs are likely to go across Tata's UK operations, the bulk of them at Port Talbot.

Liz Saville Roberts MP pointed out that political pressure in the Netherlands has resulted in Tata protecting jobs.

She also pointed out that producers in the western German state of Saarland have been granted 2.6 billion euros (£2.2 billion) in state support to transform their production procedures towards climate neutrality.

This is over four times the £500 million given by the UK Government to Tata Steel to help switch Port Talbot’s two coal-powered blast furnaces to greener electric arc versions that can run on zero-carbon electricity.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Liz Saville Roberts MP said:

“In the Netherlands, political pressure has resulted in Tata investing in an electric arc furnace and direct reduced iron technology, all the while protecting jobs and keeping blast furnaces open.

“The German government is spending £2.2bn – over four times more than the UK – to transform its steel industry towards hydrogen.

“Why is the UK so uniquely incapable of effective investment in our strategic steel future?”

The Secretary of State for Wales, David TC Davies MP, responded that a Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) plant “is not going to resolve the problem”, and that there is “nothing whatsoever to stop Tata, at some point in the future, to build a DRI plant to go along with the electric arc furnace, if they believe that is a commercially sensible thing to do.”