FIRST Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones said yesterday that Tata steel plants across Britain should be taken into public ownership if no private buyer is found.

Mr Jones, who is Labour’s highest elected office holder, made the call in a statement to an emergency session of the Welsh Assembly to deal with the steel crisis.

As steelworkers rallied outside the Assembly, he said: “I have one simple message for the people of Wales and the UK government: These plants cannot close.”

Tata’s 15,000 workers have been given hope by reports that four major European steel companies are considering buying different parts of the company.

Mr Jones said Tata had “legal and moral” responsibilities to fulfil and called on the company to wait “months not weeks” for a buyer.

He also disclosed during the debate that he had spoken with one of the potential investors yesterday morning.

But he said: “If a buyer cannot be found within the sales period the UK government must take the plants into public ownership until a buyer can be found.”

The Welsh government, which has reserves of £392 million, would contribute to a nationalisation fund but could not afford to buy or run Welsh steelworks alone, he insisted. He said steel-making was a “fundamental part of who we are as a country.”

But he said: “We are driven not just by sentiment — we are not arguing to prop-up a dying industry. Wales needs steel, Britain needs steel. Our UK without steel making is enfeebled and smaller in the world.”

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said Wales was facing a repeat of the 1980s when “a Tory government in Westminster freely allowed the deindustrialisation of so many of our communities.”

She said Thatcher’s ideological inheritors were creating a “sequel,” but said the difference was this time that Wales has its own government and urged Mr Jones to “make devolution count.”

Welsh Assembly presiding officer Rosemary Butler said she “summoned the Assembly as a matter of urgent public importance.”

Mr Cameron will meet Mr Jones at Downing Street today in a bid to regain control of the situation.