Welsh secretary announces funding to support Tata workers
Welsh secretary Jo Stevens announces £13.5 million of funding to support supply chain businesses and workers due to be laid off by Tata Steel next month. The company is switching to a greener form of steel production at its plant in Port Talbot, south Wales, which will lead to thousands of job losses. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Transcript
00:00I am so pleased to be here today to announce the initial release of £13.5 million from
00:06the new UK Labour government to support businesses and workers. These funds are the first government
00:14funds to be released through the transition board since it was set up 10 months ago.
00:19The funds will address the immediate emergency caused by the uncertainty around the transition
00:24at Port Talbot and our business supply chain fund will help insulate local businesses
00:30who primarily rely on Tata as their primary customer and support them in diversifying their
00:37businesses where needed because it's vital that we maintain business confidence and support the
00:43jobs that these innovative firms create. I want to be very clear that this is a statement of intent
00:49because unlike what we've seen over the past 14 years we are not going to wait for a crisis
00:55to overtake us before we act. My cabinet colleague Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary,
01:01is working tirelessly to secure a better deal for the future of the site with Tata. Those
01:08negotiations have been going on since we started in government six weeks ago and I
01:13hope they will conclude shortly.