Part of 4. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:41 pm on 3 April 2019.
I'm grateful to the Minister for his answer and reassured to hear that he is in regular contact. I'm sure I speak for everyone on all sides of this Chamber when I reflect the deep concern at the reports that Tata may be required to sell its Trostre site in order to facilitate the proposed merger with Thyssenkrupp.
Of course, we faced, in the Trostre plant, a situation similar to this before, when the business was owned by Corus, and we were in a situation where the workers in Llanelli were directly competing with a plant doing exactly the same work in the Netherlands. At that time, supported by the Welsh Government, the workforce and the local management were able to demonstrate that their profitability, their skill levels, were actually higher than those of the business—the competing plant—in the Netherlands. And I would like to seek the Minister's reassurance today that he'll do everything he can with the workforce and with the local management to ensure that this very high level of skill and these very important jobs—over 600 direct jobs and many, many more, of course, in the supply chain—are not lost to Wales.
It is, of course, of an importance beyond Llanelli, because the Trostre plant is a very important customer for Port Talbot. So, there would potentially be a knock-on effect there if the plant was sold in such a way as it was sold potentially to be closed down, as was the concern in the past. So, I hope that the Minister can reassure us that he will do everything he can to retain these really important jobs in Llanelli for the impact on the local economy, but also the economy of Wales more broadly.