Sizewell C, secretly signed off - will affect future Gov Spending
Posted: 23rd August 2022
“a signoff for Sizewell would compromise the new prime minister’s ability to cut taxes or spend more on the cost of living.”
In a move that has caused great irritation in Team Truss, Zahawi and Johnson are set to approve the financing of the Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk. It received planning consent last month and the government signalled that it would buy a 20 per cent stake in the project, which is being run by the French company EDF and is expected to cost between £20 billion and £30 billion after inflation. The final investment decision has not been announced. Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury who backs Truss and who sources say will have a “top half of the cabinet job” under her leadership, wrote to Johnson and Zahawi warning that a signoff for Sizewell would compromise the new prime minister’s ability to cut taxes or spend more on the cost of living. In his letter, Clarke wrote: “The quantum is sufficient to materially affect spending and fiscal choices for an incoming government, especially in the context of wider pressures on the public finances.” While the cost to government is likely to be about £6 billion, rather than £30 billion, that will give Truss far less room for manoeuvre.
Times 20th Aug 2022
Boris Johnson commits to Sizewell on the quiet. The prime minister’s decision to part-fund a new nuclear plant will ‘tie Liz Truss’s hands’ in tackling the cost of living. Boris Johnson has secretly given the green light for a £30 billion nuclear power station — sparking concerns within Liz Truss’s team that the cost will limit her ability to cut taxes and help the public with the cost of living. The government is proposing to buy a 20 per cent stake in the plant, at a cost to the taxpayer of around £6 billion. But experts believe the plans are at risk of cost overruns and delays. One of Truss’s senior aides complained that Johnson’s decision to take a taxpayer-funded stake in the project would eat into the headroom available to her. Johnson and Zahawi, lame ducks both, are understood to see the new power station as vital to Britain’s future energy security and to want to make the announcement themselves to burnish their legacies in office. An ally of Zahawi stressed that the decision was made with Kwasi Kwarteng, the business and energy secretary, who is set to become Truss’s chancellor and that “no one is more enthusiastic than Kwasi”. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Kwarteng told voters that “help is on the way” but also stressed the need to raise domestic energy production. “We need to crack on with more nuclear power stations,” Kwarteng said, “back British-made small modular reactors, invest in cheap renewable energy like offshore wind, and lift the ban on shale gas extraction in England where there is local consent.”
Times 21st Aug 2022