4. Statement by the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales: Response to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:14 pm on 20 May 2020.

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Photo of Ken Skates Ken Skates Labour 3:14, 20 May 2020

Well, can I thank Dai Rees for his question and for the opportunity he gave my officials to be part of the recent steel round-table discussions as part of a cross-party group? We raise every single week in our quadrilateral calls—myself and other Ministers from the other devolved administrations—the need to support the steel sector in the United Kingdom, recognising that it's a sector important to our national security.

There are discussions taking place between the UK Government and Tata regarding further potential support. The nature and details of these discussions are a matter for the UK Government and Tata, but I can assure Dai Rees today, and the thousands of workers employed by Tata and other steel businesses in Wales and across the UK, that the Welsh Government is standing behind them, that we will continue to press the UK Government to offer the appropriate and sufficient resource in order to overcome this current crisis, and that we are demanding that long-term changes are made, in particular regarding the volatile and high price of energy for the sector, so that it can emerge from the crisis in the best possible condition so that those thousands of people who had uncertainty about their future employment prospects before coronavirus have far more certainty that they will be employed in the sector in the years to come as we emerge from this terrible pandemic.