 Fyrddwch i chi i ni i gweithio fod yn y Llywodraeth Llywodraeth Cymru. Yn amlwg yma yn ymlaen o Tata Steel UK, mae'r ffaith i'r ffaith i'r Llywodraeth Cymru i'r tata Steel a'u llyfr arweithio ychydig oedd yn ac oedd o'r berthyn nhw, gyda'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod yn fathod o'r mynd i mi hefyd, ac yn ffraidio, I witness first hand some of the pain and the fear that this news has caused for thousands of families. This is news that we continue to believe could have been very different. There's clear evidence that tells us that the decision to propose shedding more than two and a half thousand jobs at Tata's Port Talbot Steelworks is genuinely avoidable. Tata's announced that up to 2,800 employees are expected to be potentially affected and lose their jobs, out of which around two and a half thousand would be affected in the next 18 months. Tata Steel expects that a further 300 roads could be lost in the next two to three years at Clangwyrn. It is difficult to overstate what this industry means to communities across Wales. The communities in which the steel plants are located in some of the least well-off parts of the UK were already worried and concerned. The announcement has only added to that anxiety. It is essential that Tata now builds on the dialogue it has been having with trade unions to date and conducts a meaningful formal consultation with the recognised trade unions about these proposals. I have met with all three steel unions regularly since the agreement between Tata Steel and the UK Gump was announced on the 15th of September last year. I met with trade unions again last Friday and yesterday in Port Talbot. I will continue to engage closely with trade unions throughout the formal consultation to understand the position of all trade unions and how it can support the workforce at this time. The First Minister and I have also regularly met with the company and we will continue to do so. Indeed, I met with TV Narendran, the Global Chief Executive and Managing Director of Tata Steel on Friday. We have the opportunity to meet him again in early February. We will continue to stress the importance of proper consultation and full consideration of alternative options that trade unions have put forward. I have written to successive Secretary of State for Business regarding Tata and have made it clear that we are prepared to do what we can to support the company in a just transition. I have written to the current Secretary of State at the Department for Business and Trade on four occasions since the 11th of September, requesting that she meet with me urgently to discuss the future of Tata Steel UK. To discuss the implications of any proposed plans for employees and the wider supply chain. Despite this, the UK Government has not engaged the Welsh Government to play an active role in the negotiations that have gone on with Tata Steel. The First Minister requested an urgent call with the Prime Minister on Friday. This was the first time that the First Minister has asked Prime Minister sooner for such a call. He wanted to discuss the action that could still be taken to secure a more ambitious future for this important sovereign asset. However, the Prime Minister was not available to take a call. I remain deeply concerned about the impact that this announcement will have not only on Tata Steel workers, but on the company's wider supply chain and the wider regional economy. The Welsh Government will work with Tata Steel and partners to better understand what last week's announcement may mean for our economy and how collectively we can make use of all of our leaders to support the people and businesses affected. From electric vehicles to floating offshore wind, steel is the thread that will run through the economy of today and tomorrow. Virgin steel is still required in essential items from cans to cars to construction. We do not believe that the UK should be the only G20 country to close its virgin steel making capacity. That means countries with far lower environmental standards and less strict monitoring will be producing the higher grade metals that we need for our economy. Other places will benefit from British demand while Wales pays the price. Worse steel, that steel will be loaded onto diesel-fuelled vessels and shipped thousands of miles across oceans adding costs and pollution. There is a better way. The UK Government and Tata have the tools between them to secure a longer, fairer transition for a sector that is good for growth and essential to our collective security. If this issue had been properly gripped by Downing Street, realising the need to take job losses on this scale off the table, the Prime Minister could have triggered fresh talks with clear red lines based on our economic needs. That assessment would prioritise the need to make the products on which our net zero future depends. Instead, Downing Street appeared to have accepted from the start the notion that thousands of jobs needed to be lost within these communities. Yet even now there could be hope. The Prime Minister could realise the scale of the anger, the upset and the hurt that the UK Government and Tata plan provides. He could instead pull out the stops in the coming hours and days to reverse the worst of these proposed cuts. All of us should be committed to the best deal for steel, not the cheapest deal. I will work with the company, with unions and the UK Government to prevent the scale of loss that we now risk. Wales and the rest of the UK will be better off and more secure. If the net zero products of the future will power us towards our carbon cutting future and environmental obligations are made here by our workers. I'll now take questions from journalists, Diolch, and we have an order. We have some journalists in the room with us and some on a screen. I believe today we'll be starting with Gareth Lewis from BBC Wales. Good morning. Is there a danger of giving workers in Port Talbot false hope? No. The real danger is that there is a narrative that is created and simply accepted that nothing can be done. The formal consultation has yet to start. A single job has not yet been lost, and actually the company themselves recognise that over the rest of this year, their plan, if it runs smoothly, would see the final blast furnace go off towards the end of the year. They've also been clear that there is a credible plan. They're not saying that the proposal presented by trade unions were not credible. What they have said is they're not affordable, and that's where we come back to the level of support from the UK Government. If you set a ceiling about what you're prepared to do, you should not be surprised if that then is the framework that is used to make a decision. So it isn't what is the best choice for steel, the best deal for steel and what it means for a UK economy. It is then what is affordable within that envelope. So that's why we do get into talking about one of the headline pledges that my UK Labour Frontbench colleagues have made, about a three billion green steel transformation fund. You would need all of that to get to a better future for Tata, but it's a sort of thing that the current UK Government could look at again. As I say, if you think about this, you require virgin steel as part of making everyday items today cans, cars, construction. We should not be reliant on other parts of the world to import an essential element of that with all the risks that creates and the fact that that economic value will be generated in other parts of the world. Has the company indicated to you explicitly that if there is more money on the table from UK Government, then they may change their plans? What they've been clear about is that they think there are some practical issues about any alternative proposal, as there are in reforming any part of a working steelworks. They've also been clear that affordability is a key issue. In fact, your colleague Hugh Thomas was talking about on the Friday. He said, this is a financial decision. It's about the bottom line. And actually that brings you back to money is the key determining factor here. And money could resolve part of how there is a longer just transition, which is why it's important to have a clear message for workers in steel communities across Wales and all those people who understand that their livelihoods are dependent on these choices. The final whistle has not gone and an alternative is very much possible if there is the will and if there is the desire to invest more in not just a steelmaking future, but what that means for all of us. Thank you, Gareth. Now move to Adrian Masters. Thank you very much. Can you say how much money the Welsh Government has given to Tata or is giving to Tata or is on the table to be given to Tata? Well, over the years we've provided a range of release and support, whether it's about training, of course the business rates regime as well. We've never been engaged in the negotiations around what it was possible to do. Our officials did indicate that if there was to be a serious conversation about transformation, that would require reskilling of the workforce. And we would have been prepared to put money into reskilling the workforce to maintain numbers moving forward in a different way of making steel because there would always be a need for capital investment and retraining around that. Now we could legitimately have done that. That was never taken up to and never brought into the room. This is the difficulty. When there's a question about how much money have you put on the table, you can't put anything on the table if you're locked out of the room. And that was a choice. You know, so within all of this, I want to get away from this idea that this is about squabbling between governments. This is actually about the fact of what's taken place. There was a choice made that the Welsh Government would not take part in the negotiations. There are facts about our desire to speak with UK ministers and to want to have a grown up pragmatic conversation about the future. And that has never been taken up at the level it should have been. And I think that steel working communities want to hear from this Welsh Government that we are not just on their side, but we understand that with different choices, a different and better future really is possible. But in terms of Welsh Government money, funding that has gone to touch in the past for various things, including the skills, that no longer goes. You no longer give money to touch. No, so for example, on apprenticeship programmes, the money that we put into that, there are still apprentices and in fact, to be fair to you, Adrian, a number of members in the press have covered the fact that there are apprentices at Tata today. People who are taking part of their course of study within the college, part of the rest of that study actually going into the site. So there is practical support that still goes in today. We're not looking to withdraw the way we work with this company. What we're saying is, we want to carry on working with this company to make sure that steel products are essential for today's economy and the future are still made by Welsh workers with Welsh steel. And we help in that transition. We need willing partners both in the company and indeed within the UK Government to make that possible. That is a message that I think is understood, loud and clear, but all of those elements need to be possible. And at the moment, there is a ceiling set on UK Government support and that bounds what Tata say is possible. This is why we're here today and this is why there are thousands of anxious families, not just directly employed by Tata, but right across the wider South Wales economy. Thank you, Adrian. Now I move to Rhys William, some ITV national. Thank you. The transition board has been put in place to support those affected by these job losses. The Welsh Secretary said over the weekend that he thought that £100 million is enough for that. Do you agree? I think £100 million is unlikely. I think polite is very unlikely to resolve the issues faced by if the proposals go ahead. Let's just consider this. Two and a half thousand direct jobs could go within 18 months. To spend £100 million on the infrastructure skills needs that the Welsh Secretary said the money could be used for, you won't find two and a half thousand well-paid jobs of the same nature within that period of time. The loss will be permanent in the sense of what it does for economic futures for those workers. There are opportunities in an economy that could and should grow, which is part of the argument that we're making. When I was giving interviews for a long period of time on a roundabout outside the steelworks, you could see on the hillside large wind turbines. You could see that they've already been created. Lots of the metal in those turbines has not come from Wales or the wider UK. We will see more turbines created off the shoreline of South West Wales. We want to see those being created and pieced together actually in the docks at Port Talbot. That steel could be made within Wales in large part or it could be made in large part in other parts of the world. That might be great news for steel workers in the Netherlands. I think it will be really bad news for Welsh workers if that steel is not made in the largest part possible here in Wales. That's the future we're arguing for and fighting for, but you can't get to that future if you see all these don't make the sort of difference that I think the Secretary of State for Wales is bravely claiming it might do. I'd be very interested if any independent economist could set out and could resolve all of those issues within that timeframe. I don't think you'll find someone prepared to put their name to that claim. If it's not enough Minister, will you be arguing that the Welsh Government should contribute more to that fund? I think this comes down to whether the UK Government is prepared to contribute to a future for the steel sector. Are they prepared to invest more to gain more in value? Not just the saving of jobs today and the transition that could take place, but the future for steelmaking that we will need, not just for today's economy, as I said, can cars construction elements of those require burdened steel today? But also in the future there'll be more opportunities for steelmaking if you still have a significant steelmaking asset, and that is what we are arguing for. And before people start saying the Welsh Government should put even more into the pots, you all know what our draft budget looks like. Everyone knows that the economic and fiscal firepower to put into a genuine deal for the future of steel, the best deal requires a UK government of any type of any colour to invest in that future. And to be fair, the Conservatives themselves have recognised that because they've made clear that the Welsh Government doesn't have the budget to put in the sort of sums of money that the company were looking for as a co-investment. That was part of their rationale for excluding us, when actually we could have been part of a conversation about the whole package of what a just transition could have looked like. We still want to have that conversation if the UK government are prepared to move on from simply throwing the towel in and saying all of these workers are going, and to actually say how do we protect a sovereign asset, how do we avoid the enormous economic harm that could be caused, how do we actually turn our minds to what is the best deal for steel and the future of the UK economy, not just the cheapest deal available today. Thank you, Arisa. Now you've got Ruth Mosowski from Wales Online. Morning. You said that the First Minister didn't get his call on Friday. Has that happened since? And if not, can you spell out what contact there's been between UK and Welsh Government and at what level since? So there hasn't been a call. I have seen David Davis in between media interviews. There's been no meaningful conversation, part because David Davis has gone out of his way to claim that the Welsh Labour Government hasn't lifted a thing which is simply not true. We have a transition board meeting coming up at the start of February. I have been offered a meeting with a minister in the business and trade department. We sought a meeting urgently on Friday and we were offered a meeting today. So I look forward to the conversation that I will have with Minister Ghani in the department to see if it is possible to secure an alternative future and to recognise the sovereign risks as well as the economic harm that the current decision would deliver. I think you've said that during different answers to different people. You don't take the 100 million towards a transition and you don't think the UK Government is putting enough money, the 500 million they've suggested already. So exactly what are you saying they need to be putting in financially? And how much do you think they would need to put in for the unions plan or the alternative plan to be successful? Because clearly it's boiled out to a business decision. It's hard to have taken a business decision. So what do you say would actually need to go in? That they would require hundreds of millions of additional investment. I'm really curious about this. How much more than that 500 million then? It's not a marginal investment of one or two million. You're talking about hundreds of millions. That depends on the detail of what they're prepared to agree to. The challenge though is maintaining at least one blast furnace. If blast furnace 4 carries on then you still maintain a virgin steelmaking capacity. You can then get into the detail of creating an electric arc as well. No one is saying that electric arc steelmaking is not part of the future. It is part of the future and everyone accepts that. We need to do something about the fact that we export millions of tonnes of scrap. We don't recycle that scrap within the UK in a way that we should do. So we are very much on board with that being part of what needs to happen. In fact, in my first steel council meeting, I made this point when the steel council under quasi-quarting, if you remember him when he was a business secretary, when they came to Wales for a meeting, I made the point that they needed again to be a look at a strategy for scrap, how to retain it in the country, not to export it, how to get good quality scrap available because it's playing the electric arc as part of the future. The transition that needs to take place is one that the current UK government is not prepared to invest in to maintain that virgin steelmaking capacity. It comes down to a choice, I think, Ruth. Do you think hundreds of millions of pounds of investment to avoid thousands of job losses? Our understanding is that at least three jobs rely on every single one of the jobs directly employed in the steel sector. Do you think it's worth doing that, not just to protect those jobs for a period of years into the future, but to invest into a transition for lower carbon steelmaking? I think that is. I think that's a smart bet on our future. And if you look at a range of areas of significant choices made by the UK government, the fact that you can look at a range of areas where the audit committee say that the government has spent money poorly of that scale, well, actually, that money could be invested on a real return of scale for jobs right across south Wales, but actually an economic future could be built and created by us as well. I think we've now got to Bronwyn Weathermeath and Global, who's in the room. Hello. Last week, Rishi Sunak says they've done everything they can to help the steelworks in Portal, but they've invested £500 million as we've heard. They say the alternative would be 8,000 jobs lost, not 3,000. Coupled with not taking Mark Drakeford's call last week, can I get your response to the UK government's response? So, we plainly don't think they've done everything possible. But when the Prime Minister was speaking from Southampton Football Club, he could instead have taken 10 minutes before that to have spoken to Mark Drakeford. It would have been a different sort of conversation we could have had. And to reflect back, when Ford closed Bridgend, Prime Minister Theresa May took a call from Mark Drakeford on the same day. So, it's not unusual of a choice of this significant of scale for the First Minister to want to engage directly with the Prime Minister, or indeed for the Prime Minister of the day to recognise their own responsibility to do so. Now, I still want to try to get the UK government to a position where it recognises. This isn't just a matter of angry and upset people in their thousands, but this is actually an issue where the economic calm is also a challenge about our future. A sovereign asset that is essential for UK security, as I say, from electric cars to turbines, cans, cars and construction, you need to have a virgin steelmaking capacity or we will be reliant on imports from competitor economies for a period of years. And once that happens, there is no guarantee that you recover that steelmaking capacity. So there is a permanent disadvantage. And I think people of any party who are serious about wanting to leave the UK into the future should take a serious view about what they're prepared to do to ensure we are not reliant in a way that no other G20 country has chosen to be so. And you talk of being locked out of the room during negotiations. What realistically can the Welsh government do now to help the people of Port Talbot? And I've been told by unions, workers and politicians that what's needed is a Labour government in Westminster. But if we're waiting for a general election, won't it be too little too late for the workers in Port Talbot? No, and it's really important to make clear the final whistle has absolutely not been blown. It is important that workers and steel communities in the wider country here that this Welsh government believes a different future is possible. I'm not going to collapse into a campaign of despair. There is actually something that could be done. It requires UK government investment to get to that future, to maintain lots of well-paid jobs for the future, to maintain sovereign capacity for the future. Even on the company's own timeframe, it is entirely possible that Blasminus 4 will still be hot and producing steel by the time of a general election. Then it is entirely possible that a new Prime Minister will be sat across the desk from Tata Steel making clear that a different sum of money is available to help in the transition with different expectations about what that money will deliver. That is why I have made clear, as indeed has Keir Starmer, that we do not want Tata Steel to make irreversible choices based on the current UK government's level of support. That is an honest difference between us and it's important that people hear that it's our view and what we continue to argue for in private and in public in the discussions we have. We are very constructive in the way we have those conversations with partners even when we disagree and I think that's what people expect of their government and it's absolutely the way that we will behave today and in the future. What practically can the Welsh government do though to help people in Port Albert? Well I've explained we're making the case for the future and actually if there are redundancies, if there are redundancies then we will provide support to React Plus and arrange other measures. We're also working alongside the Swansea Bay City Deal region on the future to be created but you know the value of the Freeport bit and what's possible without Tata Steel being there, it changes the complexion on what might be possible too. So we have a number of different things to do and we will absolutely continue to do all of those. Finally we have David Nicholson from The Morning Star. You've alluded to the fact that Blasphyrn is for will still be operating after the general election. Are you confident that the green energy plans from UK Labour will convince the company to keep it going and that money will be forthcoming from a Labour Westminster government? I'm confident that the £3 billion green transition plan for steel will be available. I'm confident that there will be a very different discussion between a Labour-led UK government compared to the one we're having now. I mean those are dividing lines that are very clear and the current UK government makes clear that it's not in the business today of offering that sort of fund and investment for the future. I actually think that if the company sit down and they have a different level of co-investment from the UK government, a different future is possible. I just want to reiterate they have not said that proposals put forward to them are not credible. What they have said is they're not affordable and that's why the level of co-investment really does matter. OK, and given the level of investment you're talking about there, do you think it's likely that a Labour government in Westminster would be looking to be a majority shareholder in Tata or even perhaps nationalise steel in Britain to effect its green energy plan? I think the question of nationalisation is a red herring because the challenge is it's an asset that is owned by Tata and actually what we want to see is the company investing alongside the taxpayer and I think blurring the discussion and the argument we need to have about a level of investment to secure the future we want, get us into territory where we'll get distracted. The clear-ass needs to be not to make irreversible choices today based on the current level of UK government support. The clear-ass UK government needs to be think again about reinvesting in this sector that is essential for the economy of today and the future and take seriously the risks to UK security of not maintaining a sovereign asset of this kind and for workers in steel communities across south Wales and indeed those in Shotland who will look on anxiously at what's happening today to recognise there is a Welsh Government that is making an argument for the future and not simply accepting that the proposals today must happen. The final whistle absolutely has not gone and this government is proud to be ardent for the best deal for steel, not the cheapest deal. Thanks for us David, thanks everyone for attending today. We will no doubt talk about this issue in the coming weeks and months. Many thanks.