Commenting on Labour’s pledge to create a £3 billion Steel Renewal Fund, Stephen Kinnock – MP for Aberavon which is home to the Port Talbot steelworks – said:

“Our steelworkers make the best steel that money can buy, but for a decade they’ve been held back and let down by Conservative governments that have refused to bring forward the policies that are needed to enable our steel industry to compete on a level playing field.

Labour’s £3 billion Steel Renewal Fund will change the game, completely. It will ensure a just transition to cleaner, greener production methods by sustaining and creating highly skilled steel jobs and strengthening proud steel communities like the one in my Aberavon constituency.

Steel is the beating heart of British manufacturing. It’s the base material of the houses that we live in, the offices we work in, the trains we travel on, the cars we drive and the cutlery we eat our meals with.

And there can be no transition to net zero without a thriving steel industry.

This commitment to a £3 billion Steel Renewal Fund is proof positive of the fact that the Labour Party and trade union movement truly grasp the central importance of the steel industry to the past, present and future of our country.

What a contrast to the Conservatives, who have spent the last eleven years utterly failing to support our steel workers and their families and communities.”