UNDER-fire Business Secretary Sajid Javid is facing a hostile reception today when he travels to Port Talbot in south Wales to meet Tata steel workers, thousands of whose jobs are now under serious threat because of the crisis facing the British industry.
Mr Javid has been called on to quit after it emerged he took his daughter with him on a trip to Australia as the existential threat to steel-making in the UK dramatically unfolded this week.
The Cabinet minister has been forced to cut short his visit to Sydney to return hurriedly to the UK following the Indian conglomerate’s shock decision to sell its UK assets, including the giant steelworks at Port Talbot.
Stephen Kinnock, the local MP, who has branded the UK Government’s approach “a total shambles”, and trade unions have expressed fury that Mr Javid appeared to have gone on the trip to Australia for not "entirely work-related" reasons given his teenage daughter had accompanied him.
Earlier this week, the Labour backbencher travelled to Mumbai with representatives of the workforce, including Roy Rickhuss, the Community union's leader, to lobby Tata to keep the loss-making steelworks open.
"We have known for months that March 29 was going to be D-Day for the British steel industry with up to 40,000 jobs on the line," explained Mr Kinnock.
"The Business Secretary was not even in the country; he chose to jet off to Australia. He should have been in Mumbai with me and Roy Rickhuss."
Mr Kinnock, son of the former Labour leader, added: "Given the magnitude of what was happening and the fact it appears that he was not even in Australia for entirely work-related reasons, he should consider his position."
A spokesman for the Unite union said: "Everybody needs a holiday and time with their family but, with alarm bells ringing in the steel industry, it is remarkable and does pose questions as to how alert the Secretary of State was to the latest crisis facing the industry.”
David Cameron, who held a meeting with senior ministers in Downing Street yesterday to discuss the crisis, gave little hope that a deal to save the thousands of British workers’ jobs now under threat could be found.
“There is no guarantee of success,” admitted the Prime Minister, who stressed nothing was being ruled out yet made clear nationalisation was not the right answer.
"The situation at Port Talbot is of deep concern. I know how important those jobs are,” he declared.
"They are vital to workers' families, vital to those communities and the Government will do everything it can working with the company to try and secure the future of steelmaking in Port Talbot and across our country; it's a vital industry," added Mr Cameron.
Today, Mr Javid when he travels to south Wales will insist that “all ministerial, official and diplomatic levers” will be pulled to get a deal.
“I’m going to Port Talbot to meet staff and management, who are understandably extremely anxious about their future. I will listen to them and I want to reassure them myself that the Government is on their side in working hard to achieve a long term solution for them, for the region and for the wider UK steel industry,” said the Business Secretary.
“Whilst we can’t change the status of the global steel market, we can and are playing a positive role in securing a sustainable future,” he added.
The nub of the problem has been the so-called “dumping” of Chinese steel on the European market.
Total world steel production increased almost 100 per cent between 2000 and 2014, mostly driven by increases in China. In 2013, it produced 779m tonnes of steel, 48 per cent of the world total. The UK produced just 12m tonnes. The Port Talbot plant is said to be making a loss of £1m a day.
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