Port Talbot was built on the steelworks, and after decades of the industry calling the town home, earlier on this month, steelmaking came to an end in Wales. With thousands of redundancies at the plant, now the town is anxious of what comes next. Senedd members are exploring plans of how best to help.
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00:00As you're a new First Minister, the third First Minister now that sat in post while
00:05this transition board has been in place, can you explain why the Welsh Government has failed
00:09to support the transition board that supports workers in Port Talbot?
00:12Well, I've never heard such nonsense in my life.
00:15Absolutely.
00:16Let me just say that your Government, your Government said they'd put that money on the
00:24table, they put the money, and then they didn't spend it.
00:26Exactly.
00:27They didn't spend it.
00:28They sat there for months on end, and you know this because you're a member of the board.
00:32You know this, you're a member of the board, and I was really pleased that the Secretary
00:37of State for Wales was able to unlock that.
00:40There are a few arguments to be made over the responsibility of the steelworks and the
00:45aftermath with both the UK and Welsh Governments having a stake in the situation, and the Welsh
00:50Government claim they are doing what they can to help.
00:54We're putting a huge amount of support into supporting those Tata workers.
00:59The React and the Communities for Work programme are there, they're supporting, we have these
01:04people already, 716 of them, already benefiting from the personal learning account, reskilling
01:13and upskilling themselves.
01:16A few community hubs have been set up to help people around Port Talbot and other areas
01:20with a lot of former steelworks employees, with many people seeing it as too little,
01:24too late.
01:25But Eluned Morgan thinks there is plenty of help between now and when the next furnace
01:29reopens in a few years' time.
01:31We are absolutely determined to see the opening of the electric arc furnace, which we hope
01:37will allow people to work in the steel industry in future in that area.
01:45The real problem is that we had this gap between closing of our furnaces and the opening
01:51of the electric arc furnace, and you're quite right to refer to the support the community
01:57has put in place.