15 February 2024 , 23:24
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The fight for the future of Port Talbot is a symbol of both our decline – and our recklessness. It’s time for different choices.
The story is all too familiar. Tata threatens to quit, a panicked Government writes a cheque, and we’re asked to swallow more job losses. Under the current proposal, the Conservative government is offering £500million to boost the value of Tata’s assets, without giving anything much in return.
Just another half a billion tax-payer’s hand-out with no guarantees on jobs, and no say for us about how our money is to be spent. The Tata plan also comes with a green smokescreen: that decimation of a community is the price we have to pay for net zero. Not true.
Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham (PA)Across Europe, other major steelworks are decarbonising. That includes other Tata plants. In the Netherlands, Tata plans to deliver a phased transition at its Ijmuiden site – replacing traditional furnaces with modern equivalents as well as state-of-the-art electric arc capacity. No immediate shutdown like Port Talbot, but a transition that runs to 2035.
Or look at Germany, where the Government is lining up steel investment in the billions for the decarbonisation of ThyssenKrupp’s plants in the country. When the green transition is done, one plant in the city of Duisburg will turn out 12 million megatons of steel – double the UK’s entire current production.
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We need serious investment to decarbonise and rebuild Port Talbot after decades of under-investment – Unite’s calculation is £3.5billion over eight years. We also desperately need action to tackle electricity costs 85% higher than our main European competitors.
There are some chinks of light. Unite’s campaign has made Tata think again about some of its plans. And Labour has pledged to “protect and preserve” steel.
So what’s it to be? Private bosses’ plans to guarantee their mega-profits elsewhere based on the destruction of our British steel? Or a Workers’ Plan for steel to invest, double capacity and safeguard our future and national security. There are choices. We just need the courage to make the right ones.