Welsh Conservative AM for South Wales West Dr Altaf Hussain has said the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot could become ‘one of the most efficient in the world’ and has called for the UK and the Welsh Government to pull together to support the steel industry in Wales.
His call follows comments by Aberavon MP Stephen Kinnock that it is ‘ten minutes to midnight’ for the Tata plant at Port Talbot – which is estimated to support 12,000 jobs in Wales across the supply chains.
Dr Hussain said: “The dumping of huge quantities of Chinese steel – made with little regard for the environment or workforce - on the UK market is a massive problem which will only get worse if China’s economic woes continue. The only solution to this problem may lie with the EU, and we should be working with them to prevent this from happening.
“The plant is said to be losing £1million a day and politicians of all parties, in both Wales and Westminster, should be working together and doing all that they can to find solutions that will stem these losses”.
“I am frankly amazed by the clear hypocrisy shown by some of the other parties here. Labour are calling for lower energy bills whilst at the same time favouring huge hikes in bills to support the industrialisation of renewables through huge public subsidies. This does our steel industry no favours whatsoever. Equally, Plaid Cymru are calling for a moratorium on coal extraction in Wales - yet steel production is totally dependent on coal and needs a cheap and reliable source.
He went on to say: “Beneath Margam, it is estimated there are 100 million tonnes of prime coking coal – a million tonnes of coal a year for the next hundred years of production. The Welsh Government should be exploring ways in which we could take advantage of this resource – Tata has planning permission for its own power plant on site, which could re-use the gases given off as part of the steel-making process. Through making the best use of technology in this way, we could have one of the most efficient plants in the world. But this requires all parties to pull together and understand the full scale and nature of the problem. Using this as a stick to beat the Chancellor – as some have been doing of late - is nothing more than a politically motivated cheap-shot. Our shared focus should be not only saving our steel industry in Wales but using technology to make it the envy of the world.”