The Chancellor and I meet regularly, and obviously we know and recognise the importance of the steel sector in the UK economy. Our commitment to the sector is clear, and we will be investing more than £500 million in the Port Talbot site to ensure that steelmaking continues in the UK. Without that investment, the 8,000 jobs at the port and the 12,500 jobs in the supply chain would have been at risk.
We are working with Tata, and we have set up a transition board—the hon. Gentleman knows about that because we both serve on it—and we have provided more than £100 million of support for affected employees and the local economy. Last Friday, Tata announced that it will provide an additional £130 million of support for employees facing redundancy. The option was steel- making no longer continuing at Port Talbot, or the investment that we have provided.
Ministers keep spinning this line that Tata Steel was threatening to close down the Port Talbot works and walk away, but they know that was an empty bluff, because the costs of dismantling and remediating the Port Talbot steelworks were vast and utterly prohibitive. Against that backdrop, let us be clear: is it the case that no strings were attached to the £500 million of taxpayers’ money that has been given to Tata Steel? Was that £500 million given by the Prime Minister to Tata Steel with a green light to make 2,800 steelworkers redundant?
I would not want steelworkers to think that we are not working together, and the hon. Member and I work together and will be working together to ensure that steelworkers are protected as much as possible. I think it is extraordinary that the position he is now putting forward is that it would have been better to risk the absolute loss of steelmaking in the UK and then allow the taxpayer to pick up the cost to manage the site.
It was a bluff.
I believe it far more preferential that we made the largest investment ever in steelmaking to protect more than 5,000 jobs at Port Talbot and the 12,500 jobs in the supply chain—[Interruption.] Fundamentally, we have steelmaking—
Order. It might be better that that conversation is carried on outside, rather than going on across the Benches while the Minister is replying.
At the heart of our decision was two things: continued steelmaking at Port Talbot and protecting steelworkers.
We have recently heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence how the west is facing “a pre-war world”. Will the Minister ensure in her conversations with the Treasury that it understands the vital strategic importance of a virgin steelmaking capability here in the UK?
My hon. Friend has a huge amount of knowledge of the steel sector and is a huge champion for Scunthorpe. She knows that we are working incredibly hard with the company in her constituency, and we are waiting for it to respond to the business plans going forward. We know how important virgin steelmaking is, and we accept, because technology has moved on, that going forward 90% of all steel can be made in electric arc furnaces.
I call the shadow Minister.
Mr Speaker:
“The UK steel industry, the trade unions, and Labour are…proposing an industrial policy worthy of a serious industrial country.”
Those are not my words but those of the world economic editor of The Daily Telegraph writing yesterday. He also said that
“the Government’s minimalist plan…does just half the job, leaving the UK with a stunted second-tier industrial base, the only G20 country lacking a sovereign capability in ‘weapons grade’ primary steel.”
He is right, isn’t he?
The £28 billion that Labour is proposing has no plan behind it, and we are not told what hard workers across the country would have to pay to fill that black hole. Labour has asked for a transition to green steel. It would want us to protect steelworkers and obviously would want to protect advanced manufacturing in the UK. Customers want cleaner steel. Port Talbot could no longer function with its ageing blast furnaces, and our package will save 5,000 jobs at Port Talbot.