After Tata Steel decided to sell its business in UK, David Cameron’s government attempts to save thousands of steel jobs
Ministers in the UK are currently under big pressure to secure the company’s plants in Port Talbot, Rotherham, Corby and Shotton, after Tata Steel announced it will sell its business.
PM David Cameron expressed his concern about the workers losing their jobs at the plants, as Tata Steel’s UK business employs 15.000 workers and supports the jobs of thousands of other people.
“The government will do everything it can working with the company to try and secure the future of steel-making in Port Talbot and across our country. It’s a vital industry,” the Prime Minister stated.
Mr Cameron also reassured the people that the ministers do their best to cover this problem.
Due to recent crisis, it is estimated that the Port Talbot plant alone, which provides jobs for 5.500 people, loses £1m a day.
Another serious concern is that the possibility of ending of steel production in Port Talbot will undermine national defense capability and damage the country’s leading military power status.
As the Tata Group doesn’t want to sell the business to one of its competitors, the government in UK struggles to find ways to keep the plants open until a firm agreement will be reached between the company and a potential buyer. The government takes into consideration mothballing or nationalisation as the two best options for saving people’s jobs. Nevertheless, “no guarantees of success” were provided.
Labour MP Stephen Kinnock has called for an emergency capital injection to keep the plants open, while Chancellor John McDonnell declared that “nationalise to stabilise” might be the best strategy to cover the plant’s costs and buy time for the workers until a new buyer will appear on the market. Reducing of huge business rates is also an option, according to Chancellor McDonnell’s opinion.
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey declared for the BBC Radio that the present situation is an “industrial crisis of enormous proportions” for the UK and called for the government to intervene, as the steel industry is crucial for the country’s economy.
On the other hand, the Conservative MPs believe than subsidising the industry is the best way for the government to address this steel crisis, while capitalist Jon Moulton declared that saving the plants was “probably mission impossible” because a “very, very large amount of money would need to go in to come up with any chance of a way forward”.
