DAVID Cameron has made a surprise visit to a threatened steelworks as hopes rise that a rescue deal can be struck.

Stuart Wilkie, Tata Steel UK's director at Port Talbot and Llanwern, is working on plans for a management buyout of the troubled site.

Unions welcomed the Prime Minister's decision to call in at at Port Talbot to speak to bosses and staff at loss-making plant.

The government has said it would consider taking a stake in any rescue operation for Tata's loss-making UK businesses - including Hartlepool pipe mills, which the India-based multinational put up for sale last month.

Mr Cameron, who failed to visit SSI's Redcar steel plant in the run up to its closure last year, was making his first call to the Tata works which employs more than 4,000 people.

After the meeting, Roy Rickhuss, General Secretary of Community, the steelworkers’ union, said: "In recent weeks I have been speaking regularly with the Business Secretary and have secured commitments from government that will build some confidence in Tata Steel’s customers, suppliers and potential investors.

“David Cameron has now joined the growing list of senior politicians who have visited Port Talbot, but today we made it clear that steelworks throughout England and Wales are also under threat. This is a national industrial crisis and the Prime Minister needs to act nationally and indeed globally to secure a sustainable future for the UK steel industry.

“Steelworkers will now be watching and waiting for the Prime Minister to match his words with real action. We need immediate action to save the industry but also a long term plan to give UK steel making a fair chance to compete.

“The Prime Minister has now seen first-hand the great blast furnaces of Port Talbot, both of which will be vital to any future success of the business.

“He looked proud steelworkers in the eye and promised to do all he could to protect their jobs. Our 'Save Our Steel' campaign will continue as we hold him to his word.”

A month before SSI's closure Mr Cameron told the House of Commons his government would do all that it could to keep steelmaking alive in Redcar.