Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:54 pm on 14 May 2019.
Trefnydd, obviously, following the announcement last Friday that the Tata joint venture with Thyssenkrupp is at risk and unlikely to go ahead and that they were suspending the process of a joint venture, can we call for an oral statement from the Minister for Economy and Transport—but, actually, I'd prefer it from the First Minister, as I think this is that important—relating to the actions the Welsh Government will take to work with Tata to ensure the future of the steel industry here in Wales? It's a crucial element for the steel industry, and we need an opportunity to ask questions of the Minister to ensure that we understand fully the actions they will take to protect steel in Wales. They've done it so far—the Welsh Government has to be commended on its history of support for the industry—but here we are again, facing another 2016, effectively, following the announcement last Friday, and the workers in Port Talbot, the workers in Shotton, the workers in Llanwern, Orb and Trostre all need to have confidence that there is a future for the industry here in Wales.
On a second point, could we also have a debate in Government time on the shared prosperity fund? In responses to a debate in Westminster Hall, called for by my colleague Stephen Kinnock MP, it was clear the message coming through from the Government was that this shared prosperity is going to be more of an all-UK type of prosperity fund and that we will not necessarily be getting the same type of funding we get now and we won't necessarily be in control of that funding. It's about time now we had a debate here so we can make sure that the whole Assembly has a debate and we're able to send a clear message from this Assembly to Westminster that they should honour the commitments they made and not invent new ways of slicing up the money for their Conservative friends in the English counties.