‘We’ve got to fight for our livelihoods’: Port Talbot’s uncertain future as the cost of going green hits home

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

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“Workers united, will never be defeated!” a man shouts into a loud hailer. He is part of a crowd marching through the streets of Manchester in a May Day parade, organised by some of Britain’s biggest trade unions.

The sun is shining and there’s a festival atmosphere, as his fellow marchers hold aloft placards about workers’ rights and fair pay.

Among the marchers is Jason Wyatt, a steelworker from South Wales. He is here to shine a spotlight on what’s happening in his hometown of Port Talbot, where several thousand of his colleagues are facing redundancy.

There’s applause as Jason takes to the stage.

“They are trying to destroy the livelihoods of 2,800 people,” he says. “Port Talbot is the last bastion of heavy industry in South Wales. We have to fight.”

There has been a steelworks in Port Talbot, which sits on the south coast of Wales, for 125 years.

These days the large, sprawling site is owned by Tata Steel, an Indian company which employs around half of its 8,000 workforce in Port Talbot.

The local economy is heavily reliant on the manufacturing sector, which provides approximately a fifth of jobs in the area, according to Welsh government figures.

But the British steel industry has struggled to remain competitive in a fierce global market, and that means uncertain futures for communities like Port Talbot.

In 2019, the UK produced seven million tonnes of steel, behind seven EU nations – including Germany’s 40 million tonnes. Meanwhile, China produced 996 million tonnes.

Steelworks also cost huge amounts to run because they use massive amounts of energy.

The Port Talbot plant has, by far, the biggest bill and uses as much electricity, for example, as the whole of the city of Swansea a few miles along the motorway.

The sums do not add up, says Tata Steel. It claims its UK business loses £1m a day.

The other huge issue facing the company, and its Port Talbot plant, is how polluting it is. The steelworks is the single biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in Britain.

And Tata thinks that by moving away from its existing coal-powered blast furnace to a greener way of making steel – using scrap metal as fuel – it could reduce the UK’s entire carbon emissions by around 1.5 per cent.

The UK government has agreed to pay Tata £500m towards the building of a new electric arc furnace.

But to do that, Tata says it needs to shut down the two remaining blast furnaces, resulting in the loss of 2,800 jobs.

The drive to go green is costing jobs in Port Talbot. And that’s a dilemma that companies across the UK – and around the world – are facing.

“Tata are asking people to save the business with a forfeit in their jobs. It’s awful,” says Jason, who has worked at the Port Talbot plant for 25 years.

It is estimated that around 1.3 million workers in carbon-intensive so-called “brown” jobs will need to adapt to cleaner technologies and processes, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank.

But the numbers on the cost of going green are disputed.

The TUC estimates that 800,000 manufacturing and supply chain jobs could be axed without support from the government.

While the Climate Change Committee, an independent body set up by the government in 2008, says anywhere between 8,000 and 75,000 jobs could go in the transition.

The government says the UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions – and is leading the way in the transformation of the energy industry, with over 80,000 green jobs currently supported or in the pipeline since 2020.

“Much of the transferable expertise from industries such as steelworks and oil and gas will be crucial for the transition to net zero,” a government spokesperson said.

“And our Green Jobs Plan will ensure we have the sufficient skills to tackle emerging and future workforce demands across the economy.”

Inside the plant, it’s hot and the smell of sulphur hangs in the air, a by-product of the manufacturing process. Peter Quinn is leading Tata’s move to green steel.

He says the idea that its arc furnace could be up and running in four years is still “approximate” and that consultations with stakeholders, including the workers, would need to be completed first.

The unions and local politicians have called on Tata to keep one blast furnace operational while the new one is built. But Tata says that is not cost-effective.

Quinn says the only other option is abandoning steelmaking in Port Talbot altogether.

Jason thinks Tata should opt for a more gradual transition that would avoid the need to make redundancies.

“We’re not opposing the green steel agenda,” he says. “What we’re opposing is the way in which we’re transitioning.”

This shift is already impacting his family. His son, Tyler, is 19 and had hoped to apply for an apprenticeship at Tata.

“I’m at a point in my life where I need to start securing my future, buy a house and settle somewhere,” says Tyler. “But it’s too risky now to think that there are opportunities [at Tata] for me.”

As Jason and his family take a windswept walk on the town’s beach with their dogs, their gaze is drawn towards the harbour where the cranes used to unload iron ore from around the world, dominate the view.

But out to sea, hope could be on the horizon. There are plans for a huge wind farm in the Celtic Sea with enough wind turbines to power four million homes.

And Tata hopes it can make the football pitch-sized platforms that the turbines will sit on.

But this potential new chapter in the story of Britain’s journey to a greener economy still seems too far away for the steelworkers.

Ashley Curnow, a divisional manager for Associated British Ports in Wales, hopes the towns along the shore like Port Talbot will benefit from the new development.

“I understand there’s an immense amount of worry at the moment throughout the community, and I think our role in this project is to deliver the project, as soon as we can and bring those job opportunities forward.”

At home, Jason and his family reflect on what the future might hold.

His wife, Stacey, thinks Tata is treating its workers unfairly.

“I think it’s wrong what Tata Steel are doing to their workers. They don’t really care about how it’s going to affect people and their families.”

“It’s a hard time for all of us,” Jason adds. “We’ve got to fight to protect our livelihoods”.

Business

Former Centrica chief Laidlaw in frame to chair embattled BP

Published

1 day ago

June 21, 2025

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Former Centrica chief Laidlaw in frame to chair embattled BP

Sam Laidlaw, the former boss of Centrica, is among the candidates being considered as the next chairman of BP, Britain’s besieged oil and gas exploration giant.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Laidlaw is being considered by BP board members as a potential successor to Helge Lund, who announced in April that he would step down.

BP’s chair search comes with the £62bn oil major in a state of crisis, as industry predators circle and the pace of its strategic transformation being interrogated by shareholders.

Elliott Management, the activist investor, snapped up a multibillion pound stake in BP earlier this year and is pushing its chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, to accelerate spending cuts and ditch a string of renewable energy commitments.

Mr Lund’s departure will come after nearly a quarter of BP’s shareholders opposed his re-election at its annual meeting in April – an unusually large protest given that his intention to step down had already been announced.

BP’s senior independent director – the Aviva chief executive Amanda Blanc – is said to be moving “at pace” to complete the recruitment process.

A number of prominent candidates are understood to be in discussions with headhunters advising BP on the search.

Mr Laidlaw would be a logical choice to take the role, having transformed Centrica, the owner of British Gas, during his tenure, which ended in 2014.

Since then, he has had a long stint – which recently concluded – on the board of miner Rio Tinto, which has been fending off activist calls to abandon its London listing.

He also established, and then sold, Neptune Energy, an oil company which was acquired by Italy’s Eni for nearly £4bn in 2023.

Last December, Mr Laidlaw was appointed chairman of AWE, the government-owned body which oversees Britain’s nuclear weapons capability.

He also has strong family connections to BP, with his father, Christopher Laidlaw, having served as its deputy chairman during a long business career.

One person close to BP said the younger Mr Laidlaw had been approached about chairing the company during its previous recruitment process but had ruled himself out because of his Neptune Energy role.

The status of his engagement with BP’s search was unclear on Saturday.

Another person said to have been approached is Ken MacKenzie, who recently retired as chairman of the mining giant BHP.

Mr MacKenzie headed BHP during a period when Elliott held a stake in the company, and is said to have a good working relationship with the investor.

Shares in BP have continued their downward trajectory over the last year, having fallen by nearly a fifth during that period.

The company’s valuation slump is reported to have drawn renewed interest in a possible takeover bid, with rivals Shell and ExxonMobil among those said to have “run the numbers” in recent months.

Reports of such interest have not elicited any formal response, suggesting that any deal is conceptual at this stage.

BP is racing to sell assets including Castrol, its lubricants division, which could command a price of about $8bn.

This weekend, BP declined to comment, while Mr Laidlaw could not be reached for comment.

Business

Hundreds of jobs at risk as River Island takes axe to store base

Published

2 days ago

June 20, 2025

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Hundreds of jobs at risk as River Island takes axe to store base

Hundreds more high street jobs are being put at risk as part of a sweeping overhaul of the family-owned fashion retailer River Island.

Sky News has learnt that the clothing chain, which trades from about 230 stores, is proposing to close 33 shops in a restructuring plan which will be put to creditors in August.

The fate of a further 70 stores is dependent upon agreements being reached with landlords to slash rent payments.

Money latest: Why Aldi ‘could be forced to rethink’ business model

Confirmation of the plans comes less than a month after Sky News revealed that the company, which was founded in 1948 by Bernard Lewis, was working with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on a restructuring plan.

In a statement issued on Friday, Ben Lewis, River Island’s chief executive, said: “River Island is a much-loved retailer, with a decades-long history on the British high street.

“However, the well-documented migration of shoppers from the high street to online has left the business with a large portfolio of stores that is no longer aligned to our customers’ needs.

“The sharp rise in the cost of doing business over the last few years has only added to the financial burden.

“We have a clear strategy to transform the business to ensure its long-term viability.

“Recent improvements in our fashion offer and in-store shopping experience are already showing very positive results, but it is only with a restructuring plan that we will be able to see this strategy through and secure River Island’s future as a profitable retail business.

“We regret any job losses as a result of store closures, and we will try to keep these to a minimum.”

The company declined to comment on how many jobs would be put at risk by the initial 33 shop closures, or on the scale of the rent cuts being sought during talks with landlords.

In total, it is understood to employ about 5,500 people.

Sources said that new funding will be injected into River Island if the restructuring plan is approved in August.

Previously named Lewis and Chelsea Girl, the business, it adopting its current brand during the 1980s.

Accounts for River Island Clothing Co for the 52 weeks ended 30 December 2023 show the company made a £33.2m pre-tax loss.

Turnover during the year fell by more than 19% to £578.1m.

A restructuring plan is a court-supervised process which enables companies facing financial difficulties to compromise creditors such as landlords in order to avoid insolvency proceedings.

An identical process is being used to close scores of Poundland shops and slash rents at hundreds more.

In its latest accounts at Companies House, River Island Holdings Limited warned of a multitude of financial and operational risks to its business.

“The market for retailing of fashion clothing is fast changing with customer preferences for more diverse, convenient and speedier shopping journeys and with increasing competition especially in the digital space,” it said.

“The key business risks for the group are the pressures of a highly competitive and changing retail environment combined with increased economic uncertainty.

“A number of geopolitical events have resulted in continuing supply chain disruption as well as energy, labour and food price increases, driving inflation and interest rates higher and resulting in weaker disposable income and lower consumer confidence.”

Retailers have complained bitterly about the impact of tax changes announced by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, in last autumn’s Budget.

Since then, a cluster of well-known chains, including Lakeland and The Original Factory Shop, have been forced to seek new owners.

Business

Post Office Capture scandal: Sir Alan Bates calls for those responsible for wrongful convictions to be ‘brought to account’

Published

2 days ago

June 20, 2025

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Post Office Capture scandal: Sir Alan Bates calls for those responsible for wrongful convictions to be 'brought to account'

Sir Alan Bates has called for those responsible for the wrongful convictions of sub postmasters in the Capture IT scandal to be “brought to account”.

It comes after Sky News unearthed a report showing Post Office lawyers knew of faults in the software nearly three decades ago.

The documents, found in a garage by a retired computer expert, describe the Capture system as “an accident waiting to happen”.

Sir Alan said the Sky News investigation showed “yet another failure of government oversight; another failure of the Post Office board to ensure [the] Post Office recruited senior people competent of bringing in IT systems” and management that was “out of touch with what was going on within its organisation”.

The unearthed Capture report was commissioned by the defence team for sub postmistress Patricia Owen and served on the Post Office in 1998 at her trial.

It described the software as “quite capable of producing absurd gibberish” and concluded “reasonable doubt” existed as to “whether any criminal offence” had taken place.

Ms Owen was found guilty of stealing from her branch and given a suspended prison sentence.

She died in 2003 and her family had always believed the computer expert, who was due to give evidence on the report, “never turned up”.

Adrian Montagu reached out after seeing a Sky News report earlier this year and said he was actually stood down by the defending barrister with “no reason given”.

The barrister said he had no recollection of the case.

Victims and their lawyers hope the newly found “damning” expert report, which may never have been seen by a jury, could help overturn Capture convictions.

‘These people have to be brought to account’

Sir Alan, the leading campaigner for victims of the Horizon Post Office scandal, said while “no programme is bug free, why [was the] Post Office allowed to transfer the financial risk from these bugs on to a third party ie the sub postmaster, and why did its lawyers continue with prosecutions seemingly knowing of these system bugs?”

He continued: “Whether it was incompetence or corporate malice, these people have to be brought to account for their actions, be it for Capture or Horizon.”

More than 100 victims have come forward

More than 100 victims, including those who were not convicted but who were affected by the faulty software, have so far come forward.

Capture was used in 2,500 branches between 1992 and 1999, just before Horizon was introduced – which saw hundreds wrongfully convicted.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the body responsible for investigating potential miscarriages of justice, is currently looking at a number of Capture convictions.

A CCRC spokesperson told Sky News: “We have received applications regarding 29 convictions which pre-date Horizon.
25 of these applications are being actively investigated by case review managers, and two more recent applications are in the preparatory stage and will be assigned to case review managers before the end of June.

“We have issued notices under s.17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 to Post Office Ltd requiring them to produce all material relating to the applications received.

“To date, POL have provided some material in relation to 17 of the cases and confirmed that they hold no material in relation to another 5. The CCRC is awaiting a response from POL in relation to 6 cases.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said: “Postmasters negatively affected by Capture endured immeasurable suffering. We continue to listen to those who have been sharing their stories on the Capture system, and have taken their thoughts on board when designing the Capture Redress Scheme.”