WE NEED action on the steel industry, we need it now, and while the UK and Welsh governments are proving too tentative to rock the boat, Tata is capsizing it.
In January, Tata rejected the multi-union Syndex plan, citing concerns about the additional costs and expressing doubts — which haven’t been given the scrutiny they deserve — about the viability of keeping the existing plant operational while constructing new facilities alongside it.
Moreover, despite meetings with various politicians, including shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds MP and Wales’s First Minister Vaughan Gething MS, Tata’s position is unchanged.
This entire situation clearly highlights the underlying issues within the Welsh economy — it perhaps even distils why the Welsh government specifically has struggled to make significant improvements to the economy over the years.
At its core, the problem is one of ownership. Here, we find ourselves with a strategic resource of immense importance, with cross-party agreement in the Senedd and broad agreement among unions and the public that the blast furnaces should remain operational. Yet, despite this consensus, we are in danger of becoming bystanders in shaping the future of an industry of crucial importance to Wales.
Now, we have something of an industrial logjam whereby Tata is fixed in its position and the governments both sides of the M4 are still intent on negotiating.
We’ve been here before. A multinational company holding both governments to ransom, seeking a government bung with no public pay-off. For Tata, this has become a semi-regular occurrence.
The time for trying to appeal to Tata’s better nature should be over. The company has made various statements of intention over the past several months, during a consultation period no less, and has threatened to withdraw generous redundancy packages from workers should they take industrial action. These aren’t the actions of a responsible company, certainly not one with intergenerational ties to the community it operates in.
As I see it, we have three options. Plaid Cymru has consistently proposed two of them: nationalisation — to take ownership of this strategic resource and secure its future — an idea supported by the Industrial Communities Alliance, not as a permanent solution but as a bridge to the future, to buy time to explore options for the plant.
While all avenues should be explored, I have previously written in The Morning Star that worker-owned and co-operative models of ownership should be seriously considered: in short, we should be more Basque.
The second option, originally proposed by my Plaid Cymru colleague Adam Price MS, is to use the planning system to place a preservation order on the blast furnaces, allowing us time to devise a sustainable future for the steel industry. This is well within the Welsh government’s power.
The third option — and a very real possibility — is managed decline.
What is unfolding at Port Talbot is monumental policy failure by both the UK and Welsh governments, spanning several years, if not decades.
Tata won’t hang on for an election, nor will it wait around for what would potentially be the same level of financial support.
This is why I have submitted a no named day motion in the Senedd calling for the site to be brought into public ownership and for worker-owned models to be explored; we must seriously debate these options and come to a decision.
Quite simply, we cannot afford to be bystanders. We must fight alongside the workers for a future Wales owns.
Luke Fletcher is Plaid Cymru Senedd member for the South Wales West region.
