30/03/2016 BBC Wales Today

Welcome to Wales Today, live from Port Talbot.

The news is still sinking in here that Tata is to sell

the steelworks, putting thousands of jobs at risk.

The Indian parent company won't commit to keeping its British

operations open for long while a buyer is found.

It has to be done in a time bound manner.

I don't want to define that time at this point in time

but there are several steps to be followed.

Steel plants in Llanelli, Newport and Shotton are also

affected, but Port Talbot is by far the biggest.

We certainly hope so because the workforce is fully committed

and we have proven time and again that we

can break records and produce high-quality products.

Tonight, questions for politicians in Westminster and Wales,

did they do enough and what the steelworkers want to know -

Tata Steel, which employs more than 6,000 people at sites

across Wales says it can't give an open ended commitment

to keeping its UK plants open as the search for a buyer begins.

The Indian company has announced it's selling up in the face

of cheap foreign imports, high energy costs and a global

A rescue plan put forward by managers and unions was rejected

Port Talbot is the UK's biggest steelworks.

Tonight, who's going to buy a business losing up to a million

pounds a day in an industry caught in the middle of a global crisis?

Thousands here depend on the steel industry for their livelihoods. Last

night, a decision was taken in India that will profoundly affect them.

Tata wants to sell its UK business, including Britain's biggest

steelworks in Port Talbot, with 4000 are employed. The company also has

more than 800 staff at Shotton, another 800 work at its sites in

Newport, and 750 people are employed by the company in Llanelli. It is

not clear how long it will take to find a buyer but Tata says the

search can't go on for ever. It has to be done in a time bound manner. I

don't want to define that time at this point in time but there are

several steps to be followed. It has got to be done pretty definitely and

it is not an open ended solution. It is a blow to the workforce who know

any buyer will face the same problems that prompted Tata to

pull-out. We need other things to happen. We need help with energy

prices to help this plant get back to making money. Tata says it has

pumped money into its British businesses but it has lost money as

well. ?2 billion in five years. The company says it wants steel-making

to continue in Port Talbot but it can't commit to keeping this plant

open indefinitely while it searches for a buyer. One option would be

finding a company to buy Port Talbot as a going concern, but there are

questions over who would be in the market to buy a loss-making plant.

The possibility of a management buyout is also on the table. Unions

and managers have already come up with a turnaround plan. The Scottish

Government temporarily took ownership of sites there to help

speed up a sale but that was on a much smaller scale than the Welsh

steel industry. The UK Government has said it is open to ideas but

there are limits to how far it will intervene. I don't think that

nationalisation is going to be a solution because everyone would want

a long-term, viable solution, and if you look around Europe, the

nationalisation has varied the answer. But there are solutions and

I think once we understand the situation better, we want to make

sure we explore all of them. He has cut short a visit to Australia and

labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was in Port Talbot today, where he said the

UK Government had to stop the steel industry from being destroyed by a

global corporation that had decided Port Talbot was expendable. Unions

have told us the Shotton steelworks is profitable and that the site in

Newport could be sold off separately because it supplies the car

industry. Experts say despite the competition from China, wealth made

steel still has a role to play. We need steel as part of our

foundational economy. It means we can make things, we can make great

things for global markets, particularly the automotive market.

We are seeing automotive manufacturers really looking to

Wales now as a place to set up shop. For months, the industry has warned

it faces a crisis but the politicians have said they need

months, not weeks, to find a buyer for these plans. Tonight, thousands

of people face an uncertain future. Tonight, thousands of people face

an uncertain future. Let's speak to the First

Minister Carwyn Jones. We still hear two months ago when

the job losses were first announced and you said you would work with the

UK Government to do all you could. Clearly that has come to nothing.

Politicians are powerless. What we have done is to keep in constant

touch with the company and the UK Government to set up an enterprise

zone here and the cast was but the announcement that was made yesterday

is hugely difficult but it is important now that there is enough

time provided to find a buyer for the Welsh steel operations. You did

all you could to stop this happening? It is a question of being

able to influence Tata as much as we can. They said a few weeks ago that

they saw a difficult future in the UK but they have got to be

responsible sellers, given enough time for a buyer to come forward and

keep their operations going in the meantime. You spoke to Prime

Minister David Cameron this afternoon. Is there a route map from

here? We need to understand in more detail what Tata are proposing. I

will have a conversation with them tomorrow and we will look to get

more detail in terms of what their future plans are. The UK Government

and our self share the same goal and that is to make sure there is a

future for the Welsh steel industry. Tata could not make this place were,

what place or hope is there for any other company to make it profitable?

It is the other Welsh operations as well, they are part of a package,

and it has made many before so it can make money again. It is about

getting through this difficult patch. I think there are people out

there who will look to see if there is a future for the Welsh steel

industry. We will leave no stone unturned in supporting the community

import Albert and the rest of Wales. -- in Port Talbot.

In a moment we'll be hearing what the community makes

But first, politicians from all parties have been

giving their reaction to the news here.

There are potentially a range of solutions.

Nationalisation, taking a temporary stake.

The point is that all options need to be considered and all parties

need to work together to come up with something that saves this

I think first of all we have to ask Tata to be given time to make sure

Clearly, at this stage, it must be the UK government that

assumes the greatest part of the responsibility.

The Welsh Assembly should be helping with the business rates

and the British government have gold-plated EU legislation all along

making it harder and harder for these kind of industries to survive.

Who would buy an industry like this now?

Let's go to Westminster and our parliamentary correspondent

David, everyone knew the steel industry was struggling.

Have our politicians done too little too late?

Jamie, they hope not. Downing Street has been stressing today that it has

been focusing completely on working with the company to try to secure a

sustainable future for steel in Wales. But there is a feeling that

ministers here have been caught on the hop, the Business Secretary,

Sajid Javid, who we heard from earlier, has been in Australia. He

is now having to fly back from Australia to help pick up the pieces

of this announcement. And we heard him saying that nationalisation is

not their future for steel in the UK. But clearly, the ministers here

are looking at all sorts of options and that may mean some form of

stated -- state intervention, whether it is to help find another

buyer or to offer support for a management and workforce buyout.

Jeremy Corbyn has demanded and asked for Parliament to be recalled. David

Cameron has rejected that but the Prime Minister will tomorrow, in

Downing Street, cheery meeting of key ministers to discuss the crisis

and among those key ministers will be the new Secretary of State for

Wales, Alun Cairns. 4,000 people work here but every

steel worker supports many other businesses, not just around

here but right across Wales, from component suppliers,

maintenance contractors to food Ben Price has spent the day

here in Port Talbot. The white steam rises high above the

town, work continues as normal. But for how much longer? Andrew

O'Connor, a steelworker for around 30 years, was on the late shift when

the news trickled through last night from India, Tata is to sell off the

plant. It was not the news they had been hoping for. It is difficult to

deal with when you are working. It is a dangerous environment so you

have got to focus. But it is in the back of your mind all the time, what

does the future hold? We have heard about the losses we are making so is

there a buyer out there? We hope so because the workforce is fully

committed and we have proved time and again we can break records and

produce high-quality products. It is hard not to notice the steelworks

towering above everything else. Its presence underlines its importance

to this area and the many communities that have built up

around it. Over the past five and a half decades, the site has seen its

workforce reduced from almost 20,000 to just 4000. But the tight-knit

steel working community that exists has always supported others at times

of need. In 2012, Michael suffered life changing industries -- injuries

following an accident at the plant. He told me how important the steel

industry has been during his recovery. It is not possible to

explain the level of support and the meaning it has for you until you

have to use it. When you have got to use it and it is there, it is

absolutely fabulous. Beyond the steelworks, there is the hundreds of

businesses that have a connection with the plant but even the smaller

shops and cafes along the high Street are concerned about the

impact this will have on them. This tea shop opened less than a year ago

but with the future of the steelworks hanging in the balance,

its owner now questions that investment. We have been here ten

months into a three-year deal and I think I would have thought twice

about it if I knew what I know now. The message that rings around Port

Talbot is to save our steel. Many years here without that this

community could be lost. Let's talk to Chris James from the

community union. Realistically, how easy is it going to be to find a

buyer for this place? We have got some of the best steelworkers, the

best steel in the world, the issues are Chinese steel. If we can sort

out the Chinese steel and sort out the energy prices, this plant has

got a future, it really has. No one would argue the quality of the steel

is amazing, but the global conditions are not going to change,

no matter whose name is on the front door. The global conditions can be

sorted out by the government. The energy prices. We need those things

to change so we have a level playing field. But the Welsh government and

the UK Government can't turn around a global slump in demand. There is a

worldwide slump in demand for this product and they can't change that.

The Chinese are flooding the market, overcapacity, and there needs to be

tariffs on that Chinese steel. Do you accept that perhaps this may

just be the natural end of the road for this plant and other plants

across Wales and the UK? The UK stops doing steel like we stop doing

coal. Not for the community here, not for the people who work in

there. We have got some of the hardest working people in there.

They have ruined this whole area. We saw what happened when the mines

went. We don't want the same to happen to Port Talbot.

The decision to sell off all of Tata's UK operations

was taken in India, the home of the steelmaker's parent company.

BBC's Mumbai correspondent Yogita Limaye explains how

Tata has said it has become very difficult for the company

to continue to support its UK operations and that's why it made

the decision to look at selling a part or all of their business

There is to that lots of challenges, some of them global in nature -

competition from other countries that are producing steel at low

prices, China in particular, and also in oversupply of steel,

but also some of them are specific to the UK -

higher costs of manufacturing, relatively high prices

A Tata board member told me today that the sale has to be done

in a time bound manner and that is not an open-ended solution.

As far as the Port Talbot plant is concerned, he said they have not

begun talking to buyers yet but they are expecting

Outside of the UK, Tata has operations in the Netherlands

in Europe and the Tata board member has said those operations

are performing fairly strongly and so he indicated that Tata plans

Outside Europe, they have factories in India as well as South East Asia.

Their operations in India have been profitable and the ones

in South East Asia were making losses but they are beginning

Steel is only a part of Tata's business.

It is a huge conglomerate with over a hundred companies.

Obviously, while they are facing challenges as far as Tata Steel

is concerned, they have many success stories.

Their most successful company is one in information technology.

Let's have a word with our political editor Nick Servini.

This is a private business working in a global economy.

What can politicians here or in Westminster really do?

That is what they have been discussing. A day of intense

negotiations. Clearly, that announcement last night came as a

shock to many people. All the ideas swirling about today, broadly we are

talking about two things. A quick deal to try to keep the lights on

and something more long-term in terms of state ownership or part

ownership of the industry. What we used to call nationalisation. In

terms of nationalisation, for the UK Government that is not on the

agenda, but what is on the agenda, because of the strategic importance

of this to Britain, is significant help to any kind of deal that could

be on the table. But you need a buyer. And this is losing it is said

?1 million a day. Who is going to buy a business losing ?1 million a

day? The conditions for the steel industry have marginally improved in

recent months but the fundamentals are still there and the depressing

fact is that Tata, one of the world's greatest steel companies,

has spent ?2 billion over five years and has failed to do it. There are

clearly profit-making lines in part of this operation. One of the

questions tonight is whether the future is that it could be bought

lock stock and barrel or carved up. It will look very different in the

future. Later we'll be looking back at over

a century of steelmaking in Wales as people here hope it

won't be coming to an end. First, here's the rest

of the day's news with Lucy. A man who killed a 22-year-old woman

at a hotel near Blackwood is likely to have been experiencing a 'drug

induced psychotic episode', Matthew Williams attacked Cerys Yemm

in Argoed in 2014 before Healthcare Inspectorate Wales says

it's hard too see how health services could have

predicted or prevented it. Cerys Yemm, killed in a psychotic

episode by a man who was offered help for his problems

but refused that help. 34-year-old Matthew Williams,

a prolific user of drugs. When he took them, his mental

health deteriorated. An independent report says

that is what is likely to have happened here at the Sirhowy

Arms hotel in Argoed. Health Inspectorate Wales

are charged with improving health It looked at what happened

here in November 2014 and asked, It found Matthew Williams

was a complex and challenging individual who had received

psychiatric treatment in prison Williams was low in mood

when he was released but did not show signs or symptoms

of mental illness. He refused extra

help on the outside. He was aware of it when he left

prison, he could have engaged with it, and he chose not

to and that was unfortunate because he was a

vulnerable individual. The only real recourse to compel

somebody to accept support is for them to be detained under

the Mental Health Act and his presentation at the time

was such that that did not appear Matthew Williams' family have

highlighted inaccuracies in the report and they are not happy

with it in its entirety. There was nothing in our evidence

we have seen that would lead us to conclude we have been inaccurate

in what we have presented The report also made

ten recommendations, including sharing more information

between prisons and health boards, training for managers of prison

leaver accommodation, clear and confidential support

for families and staff involved But tonight, Cerys Yemm's mother

Paula has criticised the report, telling BBC Wales

it is very contradictory. She did not want to speak on camera

but feels the incident could have been predicted, given

Matthew Williams' violent past. Businesses and council leaders

in North Wales have met Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns

to discuss plans for a growth deal The aim is to develop the area's

economy alongside the North of England as part of the so-called

Northern Powerhouse. Heads of universities and companies

Toyota and Airbus were among A case against the Welsh Government

for copyright infringement over its use of photographs

of Dylan Thomas has been dismissed Irish company Pablo Star Limited

claimed the government used two of its photos to promote worldwide

celebrations of the poet's A better day for most

of Wales today. Some sunshine but not

dry everywhere. A few showers in the

north-east and south-east. And on Anglesey

with hail in Sealand. The sky clear with one or two mist

and fog patches forming and cold. Lowest temperatures below 4 Celsius

with a widespread ground frost. Tomorrow's chart shows a ridge

of high pressure over the UK So here's the picture

for 8am in the morning. A bit chilly but the

whole country dry. The odd mist and fog patch

but otherwise bright and sunny. A very promising start

to the day with light winds. During the day more dry

weather and sunshine. Mind you, a few showers will break

out by the afternoon. These most likely in the north-east,

the Marches and Monmouthshire. And after a chilly start

temperatures will reach Not that warm but feeling pleasant

in the sunshine with a light In Wrexham tomorrow,

some sunshine and dry but I wouldn't In Pembrokeshire, a lovely day

tomorrow. On Friday a cold front will bring

rain to Scotland and Ireland. High pressure will keep much

of England and Wales dry. As for the weekend, becoming warmer

with south-easterly winds. Some sunshine but a few

showers as well. They've been making steel

here for a century but towns across Wales have played their part

in forging this industry. Roger Pinney now on a long

and distinguished history reports which has seen many

difficult chapters. This is what it is like when an era

is brought to an end. The last tab of steel at the works near Wrexham.

This was 1990 and 1100 jobs were lost. This is what is left of the

site, the legacy of almost lost. This is what is left of the

of iron and steel making. This could be blind have all Ebbw Vale. A

heritage group has been formed to preserve the site and open up the

story which can be told to visitors but they can, they say, never really

replace what was lost. I saw men with tears in their eyes. It was

very sad. What was stunning more than anything else was the complete

site. There are only seven or eight jobs involved in the learning Centre

so it is nothing like the 1100 jobs. I was here in 1990 when production

ended. I still keep this small I was here in 1990 when production

of the very last tab. What we have is the story of industrial Wales.

The ironmasters came because of the raw materials in the ground.

Ironstone, limestone, call for fuel. His Majesty faces, for the first

time, the dismantled remains of a once great steelworks. The story of

iron and steel always once great steelworks. The story of

the story of boom and bust. This was King Henry VIII at the Tao Rice

works. For decades later, it fell to Michael Foot, then employment

minister, to announce to his own constituents that Ebbw Vale

steelworks were too close. I will always tell you the truth. He was

later to say it was one of the most difficult times of his political

career. Five years later, 6000 lost their jobs when steel production

ended at Shotton. By 1988, the industry had been nationalised or

privatised no less than four times. They're now emerges the steelworks.

When Port Talbot opened, it was a new chapter for the industry. Steel

production was moving from the cold feels to new plants on the coast. It

was really designed to make chic steel for the car industry and fuel

the whole 50s consumer boom. It was a modern product and it was part of

rebuilding the Welsh economy and the British economy after the Second

World War. Now, fresh questions are being asked. There are fresh

challenges to be faced. A final word now with our political

editor Nick Servini. Maybe the steel industry now slips

into history in Wales? It is interesting, the social

importance, the economic importance of the steel industry in Wales,

across Wales, goes without saying. But in a way, it is strategic

importance might be more important than all of that. If the British

government feels it is strategically so important for the UK to retain

steel-making capacity, it has a chance to survive. In terms of its

economic future, I think it is a race against time. Anyone who saw

the interview with Tata today will be left under no illusion, this

company wants to get plants like this off its books as quickly as

possible. There is now a job to try to persuade Tata to keep it on its

books for months rather than weeks to give it a fighting chance to find

some kind of buyer to give it a future. Thank you very much indeed.

Port Talbot, along with communities in Llanelli, Newport and Shotton,

are trying to come to terms with the for sale sign going up

Parent company Tata has said it can't give an open-ended

commitment keep the plants here open until a buyer is found.

We'll have an update for you at 8pm and again after the BBC

From all of us on the programme, good evening.