Wales' new First Minister Vaughan Gething has defended flying to India for his first overseas trip since winning the top job, despite meeting an executive who was in London just over a week ago. Mr Gething flew 4,500 miles to Mumbai, India, to tell the company his views on the closure of the two blast furnaces at Port Talbot steelworks.
On Friday morning, Mr Gething met with Tata officials, the most senior of whom was T V Narendran, the CEO and managing director of Tata Steel. It comes just over a week after Mr Narendran was in London for meetings with steel unions, during which time he also did interviews with ITV, BBC and The Times. A spokesperson for the Welsh Government said today's meeting was the first opportunity to meet Tata executives following the meetings the company had with the unions at the start of May.
The Welsh Conservatives have criticised the trip. Tory leader Andrew RT Davies said: "This only confirms that the First Minister’s globetrotting is an attempt to divert from the crisis within his Government. The cost of his plane ticket to India is the only cash the First Minister has put on the table for steel jobs, all for a meeting that could have been held in London."
The specifics of this trip was first discussed in the Will Hayward Newsletter which you can view here.
Speaking after his meeting with Mr Narendran, the First Minister said: "It was a candid meeting running through a range of our issues. I have of course robustly made the case for the final blast works not to close in the current schedule and not make irreversible choices.
"I also went through and made clear that I did not want there to be compulsory redundancies, I think that's important. I also made clear that I want a commitment that the downstream businesses like Trostre, Shotton and Llanwern will be fully supplied. Because there's likely a gap of more than two years with the blast furnaces going off before we get to an electric arc and they need to clear and [make] public commitment on what that will mean and when the planning process will start."
Asked if he could not have had the same conversation on the phone, Mr Gething said: "If you think that a phone call from Cardiff has the same impact as the two and a half hours of direct engagement we've had in Mumbai, then I think it just shows a lack of understanding about how business works and how you use your influence.
"Any First Minister, of any party should be here in Mumbai having this meeting directly with Tata executives. It's the right thing to do for Wales to fight for the jobs that exist now and the jobs we want in the future.
"That's what I'm doing and it's what any First Minister winner should do and I'm proud to be here, doing just that. I do think we'll see more progress from today's meeting in the coming days and weeks. And I'll continue to carry on doing the right things for my country."
Tata is planning to shut both of its blast furnaces at Port Talbot at a cost of 2,800 jobs around the UK, and move entirely to electric arc steelmaking. The company has said its £1.25bn plan will see the two blast furnaces close by the end of June and end of September respectively.
Yesterday, steelworker members of the Community union have voted to take industrial action against planned job losses at Tata.
In a statement, the Welsh Government said: "
