UK to demand Indian-owned Tata saves jobs at Wales steelworks, minister says

UK business secretary said he had spoken to Tata over firm’s plan to shut down blast furnaces at the plant – a move that puts 2,800 jobs at risk

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The Welsh dragon on the gates of the Tata Steel sports and social club in Port Talbot, Wales, UK. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 1:17am, 8 Jul 2024Updated: 1:51pm, 8 Jul 2024

The UK government will demand that jobs are saved at Tata’s steelworks in Port Talbot, Wales, in exchange for state support for the industry, new Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said.

Reynolds – in the job for less than two days after the Labour Party’s landslide win in Thursday’s general election – told the BBC on Sunday that both he and Prime Minister Keir Starmer have already spoken to Tata Steel over the company’s plan to shut down its blast furnaces at the plant in south Wales in a move that could hit the jobs of some 2,800 workers.

“I’m going to make sure that job guarantees are part of the negotiation that we are having,” he said. “It’s not about underwriting loss making businesses in perhaps a way we might have thought about industrial policy in the past. It is about being a partner for investment in the future.”

The fate of the jobs at the steelworks is an early test of the new government’s industrial policy. Tata is planning to cut jobs as it replaces the blast furnaces at with greener but less labour-intensive electric arc furnaces.

The Tata steelworks in Port Talbot, Wales, UK. Photo: AFP

Reynolds pointed to Labour’s election manifesto pledge to plough £2.5 billion (US$3.2 billion) into the steel industry, on top of £500 million that was already in the outgoing Tory government’s plans, telling the BBC “there is more money available” for the steel industry under a Labour government but that it will come with conditions.