Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the “landmark decision” would “kickstart” economic growth, while Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the investment was necessary to usher in a “golden age of clean energy”
The government has committed £14.2bn of investment to build the new Sizewell C nuclear plant on the Suffolk coastline, ahead of the Spending Review. Sizewell C will create 10,000 direct jobs, thousands more in firms supplying the plant and generate enough energy to power six million homes, the Treasury said.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the “landmark decision” would “kickstart” economic growth, while Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the investment was necessary to usher in a “golden age of clean energy”.
However, Alison Downes, director of pressure group Stop Sizewell C, said ministers had not “come clean” about Sizewell C’s cost, because “negotiations with private investors are incomplete”. Reeves said the facility would be the “biggest nuclear building programme in a generation”.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the investment was the “only way” to “take back control of our energy, and tackle the climate crisis”. The government insists that nuclear power provides enormous amounts of low-carbon, non-intermittent energy that forms a crucial part of the government’s plans to almost completely eliminate fossil fuels from the UK’s energy grid by 2030.
However, Sizewell C will take at least a decade to complete. Hinkley Point C in Somerset, the other new plant of which Sizewell C is a copy, will switch on in the early 2030s – more than a decade late and costing billions more than originally planned. The Sizewell C investment is the latest in a series of announcements in the run-up to the government’s Spending Review, which will be unveiled on Wednesday.
The review will see the chancellor set out day-to-day spending and investment plans for each government department. A number of policies have already been announced, including the U-turn on winter fuel payments, a commitment to increase defence spending, and investment in the science and technology sector.
In the 1990s, nuclear power generated about 25% of the UK’s electricity. But that figure has fallen to about 15%, with all but one of the UK’s existing nuclear fleet due to be decommissioned by 2030. The previous Conservative government backed the construction of Sizewell C in 2022. Since then, Sizewell C has had other pots of funding confirmed by government, and in September 2023 a formal process to raise private investment was opened.
Ministers and EDF – the French state-owned energy company that has a 15% stake in Sizewell C – have previously said there were plenty of potential investors and they were close to finalising an agreement on it. The final investment decision on the funding model for the plant is due later this summer.
The Sizewell C project has faced opposition at the local and national level from those who think it will prove to be a costly mistake. Downes said she believed the money could be spent on other priorities and feared the project would “add to consumer bills”.
“There still appears to be no final investment decision for Sizewell C but £14.2bn in taxpayers’ funding, a decision we condemn and firmly believe the government will come to regret,” she said. “Starmer and Reeves have just signed up to HS2 mark 2,” she added, referring to the railway project mired by years of budget disputes and delays. On Saturday about 300 protesters demonstrated on Sizewell beach against the project, with many concerned about how the plant would change the area’s environment. Once operational, Sizewell C is expected to employ 900 people.
As well as Sizewell C, the government said it was investing £2.5bn over five years into research and development for fusion energy and making investments into its defence nuclear sector. This included development of HMNB Clyde and investment in Sheffield Forgemasters.
