Labour sticks to £3bn for steel despite green U-turn

Labour says it remains committed to a £3bn fund for the steel industry and will spend the money over five years, not the decade originally planned.

The statement came despite leader Sir Keir Starmer ditching the party's flagship £28bn green investment pledge.

Announced in 2021, the green programme had been a key part of Labour's plans to reach climate targets.

The party has promised the cash to find an alternative to Tata Steel's plans to close Port Talbot's blast furnaces.

Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens said: "Working in lockstep with a Welsh Labour government, the next UK Labour government will invest to ensure that the transition to green steel comes with jobs in Wales."

The £3bn figure for steel is reached once £500m towards a new electric arc furnace at Port Talbot, pledged by UK Conservative ministers, is included.

But that proposal for the south Wales plant means the loss of 2,800 jobs.

Labour figures have appealed for the UK government and Tata Steel not to take irreversible decisions before a general election.

The party is also concerned at the loss of the ability to make steel from scratch at the site, as the arc furnace will be fed by scrap metal.

It is intended to help the industry move to greener forms of steel making, and it is argued, prevent even higher numbers of well paid jobs disappearing.

• Tata Steel open to more investment in Port Talbot

• Tata Steel says it has lost £160m in three months

Tata has said it is open to further investment in the plant, but at the Senedd on Wednesday the boss of Tata Steel UK said there was "no way" the blast furnaces, for making steel in the traditional way, at Port Talbot could be kept.

The company, which says it has lost £160m in recent months, plans to shut the furnaces be the end of this year, with the last possible date of a UK general election being late January 2025.

It is not clear what an incoming UK Labour government would do were both of its two blast furnaces to be closed by the time it takes power.

Shadow trade minister and Llanelli MP Nia Griffith told BBC Wales: "We know exactly where we're going on that [£3bn clean steel fund]. That is definitely being kept."

Port Talbot steelworks is the focus of an intense battle over what the UK's industrial future should be

Later, Sir Keir said Labour was still committed to net zero energy production by 2030, that the party's green investment plans announced so far will stay but that proposals to help people better insulate their homes will be scaled back.

Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of steelworkers union Community welcome the announcement that "Labour will secure the £3bn needed to greenify and rebuild our steel industry".

Sir Kier had "contacted me today to assure it would be delivered within the first parliament of a Labour government", he added.

But, criticising the Welsh Labour government, Tory Senedd group leader Andrew RT Davies said: "Labour, who haven't put a penny on the table to prevent job losses at Port Talbot, cannot be trusted to back out steelworkers. "How can our steelworkers be sure that Keir Starmer will not flip flop again, leaving them high and dry?"

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