WHEN we look at the Tata Steel site in Port Talbot, we don’t just look at Britain’s largest steelworks. We look at an industry that has left an indelible mark on the lives of many in the communities of south Wales.
 
The lights, flames, hulking smokestacks and chimneys  — forming the town’s “north star,” as Michael Sheen once described it  — comprise the formidable backdrop to the lives of those that have grown up and lived there, and are an unmistakable sight for those passing through. When we look at the steelworks in Port Talbot, we also look at the biggest challenge facing the steel industry for a generation.
 
In September last year, we learned, as had been suspected for some time, that the British government’s backroom deal with the owners of Tata Steel would likely exact the high price of 3,000 job losses, with the vast majority of those falling on the Port Talbot plant.

The confirmation that came on January 19, that Tata will be closing its blast furnaces was, and remains, devastating. The decision to push ahead despite the probable fallout and the loss of highly skilled, unionised jobs in Wales will be a hammer blow.
 
At stake is not just the operation of a firm. The livelihoods of thousands of workers, including those working in the supply chain, the Welsh economy, the future of an industry, the businesses that depend on people’s wages and a sense of hope for a just transition to carbon-neutral steelmaking have now been thrown into question.
 
There is no getting around the fact that the steel industry is a major greenhouse gas emitter. In 2019, iron and steelmaking generated 14 per cent of Britain’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions, and 2 per cent of total emissions while in Wales alone, iron and steel comprised 37 per cent of total industry and business sector emissions.

Tata is Britain’s largest carbon emitter. Problematic though steel production is for climate change, we are going to need it by the tonne to realise any ambitions we have around green infrastructure, renewable energy and decarbonisation.
 
This comes with a caveat. The language of net zero and the green lexicon are increasingly being used to justify downsising when decarbonisation should not be at the expense of workers. We’re currently seeing workers, who should be playing a part in the transition, being thrown on the scrap heap.

There is hypocrisy in Tata’s position to reduce operations in Wales on the basis of a green transition while continuing to export blast furnace-manufactured steel from non-green sites in India and the Netherlands.
 
Tata’s decision to close the blast furnaces will also mean that Britain will become the only country in the G20 unable to produce steel from scratch.

That the British government are so willing to let go of this capacity and oversee the annihilation of the industry is political neglect tantamount to economic and social vandalism.

In a wholly unsurprising move on the weekend following Tata’s announcement, the Prime Minister once again refused to engage with the Welsh government to protect jobs at Tata, yet another indication that no British government can ultimately be trusted to act in Wales’s best interests.
 
Steel is of national strategic importance  — a resource that we’ll need for anything and everything. From the white goods in our homes to wind turbines and solar panels, to the public transport we take, the cars we drive and the buildings we work in — steel is used for it all.
 
Far from continuing to pour money into a private entity that threatens to up sticks and leave every couple of years, there remains another way forward: renationalisation.

Steel is a resource whose production should not be contingent on private interests. Vital to the fabric of our daily lives and the ambitions for the future, it must be brought back into public ownership.
 
Renationalisation is a necessary bridge to securing the long-term viability and diversification of domestic steel production in Wales. Make no mistake, investment is needed, but this is a pittance when compared to what will be saved.
 
Failing to nationalise steel — a strategic resource — exposes the current government’s blind faith in markets and refusal to depart from its thinking even when confronted with the hard facts and wider implications of failing to nationalise.

It is not too late to step in and take the company over, which would have the immediate effect of keeping people in work and the economy of a town afloat. This is absolutely the government’s proper role.

When we compare Britain’s levels of investment to that of countries such as Germany and France, the £500 million offered by the British government doesn’t touch the sides. But more than this, given that large-scale state investment in this industry is essential, why should it be under the control of anyone but the state?
 
And it shouldn’t stop there. Renationalisation should be the beginning of a locally and worker-owned future. Ownership will be the deciding factor of the Welsh steel industry’s future, and that ownership must reside with the state, and eventually the people, if the industry is to flourish.

Luke Fletcher is MS for South Wales West and the Plaid Cymru economy spokesperson. Follow him on Twitter @FletcherPlaid.