04 April 2016 - Steel crisis in Wales

Steel crisis: State ready to help on Port Talbot deal - Sajid Javid
(BBC Politics, 03/04/2016)

The government says it is ready to offer support to secure a buyer to save Port Talbot steelworks, where thousands of jobs are at risk.
Business Secretary Sajid Javid said he did not think nationalisation was the solution but did not rule it out.
He said any buyer would want to look at "plant, pensions and power supply" - which ministers were "working on".

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Ministers hold talks with potential buyer for Tata Steel’s UK operations
Nigel Morris (The Independent, 03/04/2016)
A multibillion pound move to save Britain’s steel industry from collapse by underwriting some of its pension liabilities, cutting its energy bills and modernising its largest plant is being prepared by the Government.
Ministers have held initial talks with a potential buyer of parts of Tata Steel’s loss-making UK operation, including the giant Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales, with more discussions planned this week.
Sanjeev Gupta, the tycoon whose firm Liberty House has already saved several UK steelworks, said: “We would need a proper partnership with the Government. I don’t know what that would entail at this stage. We’ve started the discussions,” Mr Gupta said.

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The UK steel industry can be saved. Here’s how
Adam Price (The Guardian, 03/04/2016)

In just six days the steel crisis has become the defining issue in British politics. Reputations, not just of individuals but whole institutions, from Cardiff through London to Brussels, are on the line. One government – the one in Edinburgh – has already passed the test with flying colours, with the world’s shortest ever nationalisation single-handedly saving the Scottish steel industry. UK and Welsh ministers – at opposite ends of the M4 and the political spectrum – have seemed sluggish in comparison. They now tell us they knew the writing was on the wall for weeks or months – in which case their inaction to date has been criminally complacent. This isn’t just a steel crisis, it’s a crisis of democracy, where the public’s trust in politics itself is now dangerously eroded.
The Guardian view on the steel crisis: Port Talbot matters more than China
For the time being the apportionment of blame can be left to the historians. It’s preventing steel itself from becoming history that has to be our focus now. Apart from closure, three competing solutions seem to be in the mix – sale to a private buyer, nationalisation and a union-backed management-and-employee buy-out. All three can be currently characterised by an enthusiasm deficit. There are private-sector buyers interested in the more profitable or least loss-making parts of Tata Steel’s UK estate, but not the searing heart of Port Talbot’s heavier end. The UK government says it won’t nationalise, and the Welsh government says it can’t. The unions are also understandably nervous about a mutualisation that would be on a scale never before seen in Britain. We are at something of an impasse, where no one is sure of what should happen next, apart from one cast-iron certainty: if we do nothing the steel industry will die.
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