Lord Jones (Lab)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Statement, delivered persuasively and helpfully. What good news might be given for the steelworkers of Wales? We once had a mighty industry, up until the late 1970s. Not any more. We employed tens of thousands in that once-great industry. The ministerial foreword by the Secretary of State and Minister of State, Messrs Kyle and McDonald, was apposite. I liked their basic statement: “This decline is not inevitable”. I also liked their two concluding sentences: “Steel built our past. It will shape our future”. Certainly, the Welsh steelworker helped to defeat the Kaiser and Adolf Hitler. We have a mighty record: a case in point now is Port Talbot. What good news might be given for the steelworkers of Wales? I declare an interest: I worked in a giant steelworks called Shotton in north-east Wales. At its tremendous best, as late as 1980, some 14,000 worked on site. Not now: there are much less than 1,000. When I worked there, I was a common labourer. I worked on the furnace stage of number 2 blast furnace, and my role was at the point when the metal burst from the furnace base.