Why Nigel Farage's claim he'll re-open Port Talbot blast furnaces is virtually impossible to achieve
Why Nigel Farage's claim he'll re-open Port Talbot blast furnaces is virtually impossible to achieve
There has been no appetite from either UK or Welsh governments, or steelworks owner, Tata, to do so
Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, speaking in Port Talbot
(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne )
Reform UK says it expects to not only take seats in the Senedd at the election next year, but also win enough to govern Wales. To kickstart its campaign, leader Nigel Farage visited Wales to give a speech in Port Talbot.
Made in front of a private audience of a handful of Reform councillors and journalists, Nigel Farage said it was the first public discussion of any policies from Reform.
Ahead of it, his team had briefed lines of policies to the media, and given an opinion piece by Mr Farage to WalesOnline with him setting out his plans for Wales. You can read it in full here.
That included two particularly eye-catching policies:
More coal mining in Wales . Mr Farage says: "We would allow coal, if suitable, to be mined in Wales".
. Mr Farage says: "We would allow coal, if suitable, to be mined in Wales". Re-open Port Talbot steelworks. Mr Farage says that "more coal mining" was "part of Reform's long-term ambition to re-open the Port Talbot Steelworks but we know this will not be quick or easy". For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
In his opinion piece, Mr Farage actually said Reform wanted to "re-open" the steelworks. The steelworks at Port Talbot is not closed, but there is a transition from blast furnaces to an electric arc furnace underway. The two remaining blast furnaces were closed in 2024 and there were mass job losses as a result.
Article continues below
Indian steel giant Tata runs the plant and said it had closed the blast furnaces because they were at the end of their life, huge emitters of CO2, a greenhouse gas, and that it was unsustainable to keep up with financial losses of £1m a day.
The company said the new electric arc furnace would reduce emissions and secure the future of any steelmaking at the Port Talbot site. The switch is being funded by £500m of UK Government money with the rest of the £1.25bn investment coming from Tata. Tata said it would produce a different type of steel, but that was something it has market demand for.
However, looking at the blast furnace pledge specifically, once a blast furnace is turned off it is all but impossible to turn it back on. That's not only because at the centre of the existing blast furnaces is now a solid, 300 tonne slab of iron, but because the blast furnaces didn't operate in isolation.
There was a whole network of other facilities at Tata which were all linked - many of those have been decommissioned and are being stripped.
The two blast furnaces, and much of the heavy end of machinery were, Tata, had made clear, at the end of their lives. Blast furnace four, which was the final one to be turned off on September 30, 2024, was completed in January, 1954, and had undergone a number of upgrades and rebuilds including re-linings in 1978 and 1985, and total rebuilds in 1992 and 2013.
"Sustaining the current configuration any longer, or further investment in the traditional heavy end was not economically or environmentally viable," the company said when it announced the closure.
So, if re-opening the blast furnaces isn't really an option, rebuilding them is the other way Mr Farage could deliver that pledge.
Doing that was never an option being discussed by Tata or any government. A ballpark figure would be around £3bn - for comparison, the Welsh Government budget for the next financial year is £26bn - and that "low billions" figure was one Mr Farage himself accepted.
It would be a fair summary to say that no-one in government or Tata believes there are the finances or the appetite to rebuild the site in this way.
Ed Conway is a Sky journalist who covers the energy sector including the changes at Port Talbot. In an X thread, he wrote: "There is something quite hare-brained about restarting the furnaces at Port Talbot for a few reasons. First and most obviously, it would be REALLY expensive.
"Last year the furnaces at Port Talbot were shut down and once shut down blast furnaces are nearly impossible to restart. The entire furnace is filled with a 300 tonne slab of solidified iron. It's gone, essentially.
"Today, the furnace is essentially a shell, containing a big lump of iron. Much of the steel mill is gone too. So too are the cranes at the port for iron & coal.
"The upshot is there's no button one can press to restart primary steelmaking in Port Talbot. It's gone. Only way to "restart" it as it was would be to rebuild most of the facilities. New furnaces, coke ovens, sinter plant, port cranes etc. That would cost billions. Perhaps £3bn."
WalesOnline put to Mr Farage that the blast furnaces were closed after decades of poor investment in the Port Talbot site and the company stating it was losing £1m a day and not due to the price or coal, or where it had been sourced from.
We also asked why Reform had made an announcement about Tata, a private company over which neither the UK nor Welsh governments had control. He said it was right to "state an ambition".
He was also asked to provide evidence to back up his claim it was doubtful that the electric arc furnace in Port Talbot would ever be switched on.
Mr Farage said: "Tata can say what they like, I doubt, in the status quo, that furnace will ever be switched on." As for evidence to back that up, he said: "To turn it on with our energy prices where it is, you'd be producing very, very expensive secondary steel. An EAF is not the real deal but it's better than nothing."
During questions, he seemed to accept that it was not up to any government - whether devolved or central - to have any say on re-opening the blast furnaces and he accepted it would cost in the "low billions".
"Re-opening a blast furnace is no easy thing, this one has closed, that's the tragedy," he said. "We're going to need cheaper energy, much cheaper local coal, and we're going to need private business partners prepared to come and do a joint venture with government to make it work.
"Yes it is going to cost in the low billions to do it and I'm not pretending it will be easy".
When it was put to him that there are not billions of pounds in the Welsh Government budget for that, he said: "Once a blast furnace has been closed down to re-open that particular blast furnace is very, very difficult.
"Nothing is impossible but it might be difficult. It might be easier build a new one, could a Welsh Government, a Welsh devolved Government do it on its own? It would need some help from a national UK Government too.
"That's why I've phrased all this this morning very, very, carefully to not saying we will do this once we're in control in Cardiff, this would be an ambition, we'd need a Westminster government to approve this and, who knows, it could be us in time too, and we need to work with companies as well. But as an ambition it's the right one."
He added: "It is difficult to know how much leverage Welsh Government could have over these things".
Mr Farage also seemed to qualify the claim in his opinion piece about coal mining when questioned. In the WalesOnline opinion piece he said: "We would allow coal, if suitable, to be mined in Wales", but in the interview he said he was only referencing "specialist small scale" mines.
During the press conference, he was asked whether he thought young people would want to work in mines. To that he replied: "If you offer people well paid jobs you'd be surprised how many will take them even though we all accept mining is dangerous".
Neither the UK or Welsh government has expressed a desire for coal mining to resume.
Article continues below
The Coal Authority remains the licensing authority for all coal-mining operations carried out in Wales but Welsh Ministers have overall approval or refusal rights.
However, Welsh Government policy is that coal extraction should not be permitted. Any application will be considered, but the Welsh Government is clear, the presumption being against any coal extraction.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scottish Sun
an hour ago
- Scottish Sun
Chancellor Rachel Reeves unleashes eye-watering borrowing spree in do-or-die bid to drive growth
RACHEL Reeves was yesterday branded a 'spend now, tax later' Chancellor after unleashing an eye-watering borrowing spree in a do-or-die bid to drive growth. Ms Reeves put £113billion on the country's credit card to fund 'national renewal' projects — with defence and the NHS taking the lion's share of the budget uplifts. 3 Rachel Reeves was branded a 'spend now, tax later' Chancellor Credit: Simon Walker / HM Treasury 3 The Chancellor unleashing an eye-watering borrowing spree in a do-or-die bid to drive growth Credit: AFP She was accused of digging the 'black hole' in public finances Labour claimed to have inherited into a 'crater into which public confidence is plunging'. Experts said her next Budget may have to raise up to £23billion to keep to her fiscal rules amid economic slowdown and uncertainty over US tariffs. It sparked fears of tax rises in autumn to stop UK debt worsening and spooking money markets. Ms Reeves came out fighting after a humiliating 48 hours in which she U-turned on winter fuel cash for millions of OAPs. She unveiled spending plans for the next three years, calling them 'Labour choices' in the hope of shoring up support in the party's heartlands amid the threat of Nigel Farage's Reform UK. Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said she had a 'Corbynist catalogue' of tax rises to flick through to fund her pledges — a reference to a secret memo Deputy PM Angela Rayner sent her suggesting ways to raise cash. He called her a 'tinfoil Chancellor, flimsy and ready to fold in the face of the slightest pressure' as she set out her plans. He said: 'This is the spend now, tax later review, because the Chancellor knows she will need to come back here in the autumn with yet more taxes and a cruel summer of speculation awaits. 'How can we possibly take this Chancellor seriously after the chaos of the last 12 months?' Mr Reeves insisted later that no tax rises would be needed to pay for her commitments. Top 5 takeaways from Spending review She said: 'Every penny is funded through the tax increases and changes to the fiscal rules that we set out last autumn.' The review was the first since 2007 to go through spending 'line by line', it was claimed. The health department is expected to make £9billion in efficiency savings by 2028-29, and the defence budget £905million. The Chancellor told MPs: 'I've made my choices. In place of chaos, I choose stability. 3 'In place of decline, I choose investment. In place of pessimism, division and defeatism, I choose national renewal. 'Reforms that will make public services more efficient, more productive and more focused on the user. I have been relentless in driving out inefficiencies. 'I will be ruthless in calling out waste with every penny being reinvested into public services.' She will hope the cash injections will ease relationships with Labour backbenchers concerned at welfare cuts. A vote on measures is planned for next month. The biggest winner in the review was the NHS, which gets a three per cent budget rise in England over the next three years, taking its funding to £226billion. Financial cushion The defence budget will go up by 2.6 per cent but pressure is mounting on ministers to raise it again to 3.5 per cent by 2035. The vow to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years was boosted with confirmation an average of £3.9billion will be go on social and affordable housing in the next decade. Ed Miliband's energy department gets a 16 per cent real-terms rise with £14.2billion extra going on the Sizewell C nuclear plant. Families and OAPs could save £600 a year on bills in more energy-efficient homes, she said. A pledge to end the use of asylum hotels by 2029 will save £1billion a year, she insisted. The police will get an above-inflation increase but top cops have warned of 'incredibly challenging' budgets following tense talks between the Chancellor and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. Surrey Chief Constable Gavin Stephens said the money will 'fall far short' of that needed to fund Government ambitions and maintain the existing workforce. He said the increase 'will cover little more than annual inflationary pay increases'. The Chancellor inherited, supposedly, a black hole and she has dug a crater into which public confidence is plunging. Richard Tice Ms Reeves aims to meet her fiscal rule of balancing day-to-day spending with revenues by 2029-30 and plans to reduce the UK's debt. Her financial cushion is just less than £10billion. Reform deputy leader Richard Tice said public spending was 'completely out of control'. He said: 'The Chancellor inherited, supposedly, a black hole and she has dug a crater into which public confidence is plunging.' Economist Ruth Gregory, of Capital Economics, said Ms Reeves may need to find an extra £13billion to £23billion in autumn's Budget 'simply to maintain her current buffer against the fiscal rules'. Stephen Millard, interim director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said it is now 'almost inevitable' that if she sticks to her rules, she will have to raise taxes this year. Rain Newton-Smith, director general of the Confederation of British Industry, warned that the Government cannot target business again following its £25billion raid at the last Budget. She said: 'We will hold the Chancellor to account that she won't come back for tax rises on business . . . because I don't think business can shoulder any more. 'The Prime Minister himself has said you cannot tax your way to growth. "So I think it's critical that we don't see rises like that on business because they are the ones that need to invest to deliver the growth mission.'
The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
Buy-now-pay-later Reeves is bribing voters with baubles as Labour's debt clock racks up and up
GOODBYE the Iron Chancellor, hello the Klarna Chancellor. Rachel Reeves' spending splurge yesterday may have some eye-catching purchases. But it's buy now, pay later as Labour racked up the debt even further. 3 You could hear Nigel Farage breathing down the neck of her Spending Review that saw the Treasury shovel billions out of the door on the never never. Clearly designed to see cranes in the sky and spades in the (electoral battle) ground, Reeves stuck another £113billion on the borrowing tab to try to see off the threat of Reform in the next crucial three years ahead of the election. There was £39billion for affordable homes and another £14billion for the first nuclear power station to be built in a generation. The £7billion prison-building project should be welcomed, as long as the judges actually fill them with violent thugs rather than online mums publishing stupid tweets. Bribe and cajole But voters will be wary of the £16billion in transport upgrades outside of the South East — what you might call levelling up — having heard these promises before, only to see them paused, scrapped and delayed again and again. And let's hope none of the above projects over-run on their budget — like pretty much every other major government infrastructure initiative has in the past 40 years. I couldn't help thinking Reeves' speech yesterday was the most she had ever sounded like Gordon Brown, torturing a dreary mantra that these were 'Labour choices' as she sought to bribe and cajole voters with baubles while the debt clock racked up and up. But we all know what happened to Brown when the music stopped . . . While the bond markets were steady last night after Donald Trump struck a trade deal with China, these things can go south very quickly, so it's far from clear if this spending gamble will pay off for Reeves. As former Cabinet Secretary Simon Case told The Sun this week: 'The nation's credit card is maxed out.' Top 5 takeaways from Spending review He warned: 'Just like when you're at home and you've got your credit card or your mortgage, you have to pay for that debt. 'So the debt interest that we're paying on the nation's credit card, if you actually put it out like it was a government department, it would be one of the biggest government departments by spending. 'It's taking up huge amounts of our money.' The Institute for Fiscal Studies put the extra borrowing Reeves has undertaken since taking over at No11 at £140billion, with more than £105billion of taxpayers' cash alone this year going on interest payments. To tackle this, Case directly urged Reeves this week to 'put the squeeze' on public spending or face a debt crisis and a lack of confidence in the UK's financial system with horrific effects. 3 So were there any cuts, or restraint of any real note yesterday? Of course there was the obligatory three per cent rise in NHS spending over the next three years as more pound notes poured into that seemingly indeterminable black hole. While NHS chiefs were crowing yesterday that they had 'done well' out of the settlement, they were already pumping out mood music that it might not be enough. Yet by 2029, the NHS annual budget will be just short of a quarter of a trillion pounds a year at £226billion. When will it ever be enough? And where are the promised reforms to the system that would rid us of this endless gimme, gimme, gimme cycle? Also, £9billon in efficiency savings for the NHS were proposed yesterday, with scarce details on the how, but already experts are pouring cold water on even that small sum being hit. Labour promised to get a grip on the NHS, and warned that more money would not be the answer. Another election promise that has turned to dust. As has Labour's pledge to end the use of migrant hotels within 12 months of taking power. That has now been downgraded to 'by the end of this Parliament' — at a cost of nearly £5billion until then. Smoke and mirrors Even by 2029, the Government will still be spending more than £2billion a year accommodating visitors, just not in hotels. So behind the smoke and mirrors of Reeves' speech to MPs, that isn't really a cut. And the continued costs of the heaving asylum bill dwarfs any of the departmental savings unveiled yesterday. Reeves was keen to stress no return to the days of austerity, and her tinkering on Whitehall budgets was about the only part of her speech yesterday that matched her rhetoric. The £1.5billion to be shaved off total departmental spending in the next three years pales in comparison to her extra spending elsewhere. Just over £14billion being spent this year, down to £12.6billion in three years' time. Hardly putting on the squeeze. GDP at 2.7trillion . . . Let's hope the Chancellor doesn't need a major rainy day fund anytime soon, or she really will be the new Gordon Brown.
Wales Online
2 hours ago
- Wales Online
Major shake-up of how people pay BBC licence fee proposed
Major shake-up of how people pay BBC licence fee proposed BBC chairman Samir Shah suggested the current flat fee could be replaced in future The BBC licence fee would be means tested if the proposals were introduced (Image: Getty ) A BBC boss has proposed TV licence fees could be based on the value of one's home in future. Chairman Samir Shah suggested that the current £174.50 fee could be replaced with a progressive payment structure tied to property values. In an interview earlier this year, he proposed that the fee could be linked to council tax bands and collected concurrently, marking his first significant change since succeeding Richard Sharp. He also dismissed the notion of replacing the TV licence with a Netflix-style subscription service, arguing it wouldn't fulfil the BBC's mission to provide something for everyone in the country. Under this proposal, households in higher council tax bands would pay more for BBC services, while those in lower bands might pay less than the current rate. The option to opt out of paying a TV licence would be removed. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here Shah believes this approach would lessen the need to prosecute non-payers, telling The Sunday Times: "It gets rid of the enforcement issue, which is a problem. The idea that not paying the licence fee is a criminal offence seems too harsh." For regions like Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, where Council Tax doesn't apply, an alternative method would need to be established, reports the Express. Article continues below Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy may be receptive to the idea, having previously described the current model as "harder for poorer households to pay". During the interview, he tackled queries about altering the BBC's funding model and dismissed the idea of a hybrid structure that would offer basic services like news for free while charging for drama or comedy content. He also mentioned that introducing advertising to the BBC would "kill off ITV" and rejected the notion that the BBC should be funded entirely through general taxation, arguing it would "leave the BBC open to influence from the government of the day". Article continues below At the moment, although there are concessions or free licences for certain groups, such as those over 75 who receive Pension Credit, the licence fee does not take personal assets into account. The standard licence fee is set at £174.50 per annum, with a reduced rate of £58.50 for black and white TV subscriptions. For individuals who are blind or severely sight-impaired, there is a 50% concession, bringing the cost down to £87.25.
