‘We’ve got to fight for our livelihoods’: Port Talbot’s uncertain future as the cost of going green hits home
“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.
Jason Wyatt speaks during the May Day parade
“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.”
Jason Wyatt on the beach with his family
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”.
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The average two-year mortgage rate has fallen below 5% for the first time since the Liz Truss mini-budget.
The interest rate charged on a typical two-year fixed mortgage deal is now 4.99%, according to financial information company Moneyfacts.
It means there are more expensive and also cheaper two-year mortgage products on the market, but the average has fallen to a near three-year low.
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Not since September 2022 has the average been at this level, before former prime minister Liz Truss announced her so-called mini-budget.
The programme of unfunded spending and tax cuts, done without the commentary of independent watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility, led to a steep rise in the cost of government borrowing and necessitated an intervention by monetary regulator the Bank of England to prevent a collapse of pension funds.
It was also a key reason mortgage costs rose as high as they did – up to 6% for a typical two-year deal in the weeks after the mini-budget.
Why?
The mortgage borrowing rate dropped on Wednesday as the base interest rate – set by the Bank of England – was cut last week to 4%. The reduction made borrowing less expensive, as signs of a struggling economy were evident to the rate-setting central bankers and despite inflation forecast to rise further.
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Bank of England cuts interest rate
It’s that expectation of elevated price rises that has stopped mortgage rates from falling further. The Bank had raised interest rates and has kept them comparatively high as inflation is anticipated to rise faster due to poor harvests and increased employer costs, making goods more expensive.
The group behind the figures, Moneyfacts, said “While the cost of borrowing is still well above the rock-bottom rates of the years immediately preceding that fiscal event, this milestone shows lenders are competing more aggressively for business.”
In turn, mortgage providers are reluctant to offer cheaper products.
A further cut to the base interest rate is expected before the end of 2025, according to London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) data. Traders currently bet the rate will be brought to 3.75% in December.
This expectation can influence what rates lenders offer.
For around 700,000 teenagers on the treadmill that is the English education system, the A and T-level results that drop this week may be the most important step of all.
They matter because they open the door to higher education, and a crucial life decision based on an unwritten contract that has stood since the 1960s: the better the marks, the greater the choice of institution and course available to applicants, and in due course, the value of the degree at the end of it.
A quarter of a century after Tony Blair set a target of 50% of school-leavers going to university, however, the fundamentals of that deal have been transformed.
Today’s prospective undergraduates face rising costs of tuition and debt, new labour market dynamics, and the uncertainties of the looming AI revolution.
Together, they pose a different question: Is going to university still worth it?
Students at Plantsbrook School in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, look at their A-level results in 2024. File pic: PA
Huge financial costs
Of course, the value of the university experience and the degree that comes with it cannot be measured by finances alone, but the costs are unignorable.
For today’s students, the universal free tuition and student grants enjoyed by their parents’ generation have been replaced by annual fees that increase to £9,500 this year.
Living costs meanwhile will run to at least £61,000 over three years, according to new research.
Together, they will leave graduates saddled with average debts of £53,000, which, under new arrangements, they repay via a “graduate tax” of 9% on their earnings above £25,000 for up to 40 years.
A squeezed salary gap
As well as rising fees and costs of finance, graduates will enter a labour market in which the financial benefits of a degree are less immediately obvious.
Graduates do still enjoy a premium on starting salaries, but it may be shrinking thanks to advances in the minimum wage.
The Institute of Student Employers says the average graduate starting salary was £32,000 last year, though there is a wide variation depending on career.
File pic: PA
With the minimum wage rising 6% to more than £26,000 this April, however, the gap to non-degree earners may have reduced.
A reduction in earning power may be compounded by the phenomenon of wage compression, which sees employers having less room to increase salaries across the pay scale because the lowest, compulsory minimum level has risen fast.
Taken over a career, however, the graduate premium remains unarguable.
Government data shows a median salary for all graduates aged 16-64 in 2024 of £42,000 and £47,000 for post-graduates, compared to £30,500 for non-graduates.
Graduates are also more likely to be in employment and in highly skilled jobs.
There is also little sign of buyer’s remorse.
A University of Bristol survey of more than 2,000 graduates this year found that, given a second chance, almost half would do the same course at the same institution.
And while a quarter would change course or university, only 3% said they would have skipped higher education.
Students receive their A-level results at Ark Globe Academy in London last year. File pic: PA
No surprise then that industry body Universities UK believes the answer to the question is an unequivocal “yes”, even if the future of graduate employment remains unclear.
“This is a decision every individual needs to take for themselves; it is not necessarily the right decision for everybody. More than half the 18-year-old population doesn’t progress to university,” says chief executive Vivienne Stern.
“But if you look at it from a purely statistical point of view, there is absolutely no question that the majority who go to university benefit not only in terms of earnings.”
‘Roll with the punches’
She is confident that graduates will continue to enjoy the benefits of an extended education even if the future of work is profoundly uncertain.
“I think now more than ever you need to have the resilience that you acquire from studying at degree level to roll with the punches.
“If the labour market changes under you, you might need to reinvent yourself several times during your career in order to be able to ride out changes that are difficult to predict. That resilience will hold its value.”
The greatest change is likely to come from AI, the emerging technology whose potential to eat entry-level white collar jobs may be fulfilled even faster than predicted.
The recruitment industry is already reporting a decline in graduate-level posts.
A maths exam in progress at Pittville High School, Cheltenham.
File pic: PA
Anecdotally, companies are already banking cuts to legal, professional, and marketing spend because an AI can produce the basic output almost instantly, and for free.
That might suggest a premium returning to non-graduate jobs that remain beyond the bots. An AI might be able to pull together client research or write an ad, but as yet, it can’t change a washer or a catheter.
It does not, however, mean the degree is dead, or that university is worthless, though the sector will remain under scrutiny for the quality and type of courses that are offered.
The government is in the process of developing a new skills agenda with higher education at its heart, but second-guessing what the economy will require in a year, never mind 10, has seldom been harder.
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Universities will be crucial to producing the skilled workers the UK needs to thrive, from life sciences to technology, but reducing students to economic units optimised by “high value” courses ignores the unquantifiable social, personal, and professional benefits going to university can bring.
In a time when culture wars are played out on campus, it is also fashionable to dismiss attendance at all but the elite institutions on proven professional courses as a waste of time and money. (A personal recent favourite came from a columnist with an Oxford degree in PPE and a career as an economics lecturer.)
The reality of university today means that no student can afford to ignore a cost-benefit analysis of their decision, but there is far more to the experience than the job you end up with. Even AI agrees.
Ask ChatGPT if university is still worth it, and it will tell you: “That depends on what you mean by worth – financially, personally, professionally – because each angle tells a different story.”
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