Taxpayers are bankrolling Sizewell C to the tune of £6.4bn
Posted: 7th April 2025
As we suspected, the government has released the £2.7bn for Sizewell C announced in the Autumn Statement, making the total of taxpayers’ money going into the project a staggering £6.4bn. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said “We are injecting a further £2.7 billion for Sizewell C to continue preparatory works, and build up their supply chain and workforce ahead of the government’s final investment decision.”
Stop Sizewell C reacted: “With all the financial turmoil at the present time, it is bewildering that the government is essentially bypassing the Spending Review and pre-empting a Final Investment Decision, by committing so many billions to Sizewell C, despite its high cost and significant construction risk. Consumers need to know that Ministers still refuse to reveal what the project’s headline cost would be, yet every household will pay a nuclear tax on their bills throughout Sizewell C’s lengthy construction.”
Read more:
EADT – https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/25065158.another-significant-show-confidence-sizewell-c/
TAKE ACTION! Send an email to Treasury Minister Darren Jones: action.stopsizewellc.org/darren-jones or click the image below. Please send the Minister an email now (text relates to our proposal to redirect funds to the Warm Homes Plan, see below, but you can send your own text by clicking “personalise this email”) and share this link or message to friends and family to help amplify the campaign. Thank you.
We have also changed the set up for our email action to the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, urging her to Cancel Sizewell C, so even if you have written before, you can write again!
action.stopsizewellc.org/save-billions-cancel-sizewellc. Feel free to edit the message text by clicking “personalise this email)
Many thanks for your support.
Alison & Paul,
Alison Downes, Executive Director
Paul Collins, Chair, Stop Sizewell C
Template message to Darren Jones in the email action.
I am writing to you during the Spending Review in which, I acknowledge, difficult choices must be made.
I urge you to steer away from expensive, risky Sizewell C and redirect taxpayers’ funding to your own government’s Warm Homes Plan. This would be a much more cost-effective way to achieve energy security (through a reduction in household consumption), lower energy bills and create long-term sustainable jobs in every constituency. You can read more about this here: https://stopsizewellc.org/sizewellcvswarmhomes.
I appeal to you not to make a Sizewell C Final Investment Decision at the expense of other choices that will help working families better.As ever, here is our regular reminder of things you can do.
Other Actions
1. Give a home to a protest board
Thank you to everyone who has taken boards. We have more available, in A1 and A2 size, which can be collected from Theberton. Email [email protected] if you can give one a home. Let us know the size and preferred message (see below) and whether you need a hand putting it up.
2. Write to the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, urging her to cancel Sizewell C.
action.stopsizewellc.org/save-billions-cancel-sizewellc or click the image below. We now have sent over 1,000 messages during this Spending Review! But we could always do with more….Either send the standard message (see below for the text) by pressing “Send Message Now” after entering your details, or edit/paste in your own text by clicking “Personalise this email”.
3. Sign our petition to David Goldstone, Chair of the Office of Value for Money.
action.stopsizewellc.org/valueformoney. Unlike the investor actions below, you can sign this only once.
4. Write to potential Investors, especially Centrica!
Centrica: action.stopsizewellc.org/centrica
Amber Infrastructure: action.stopsizewellc.org/amber
Equitix: action.stopsizewellc.org/equitix
Schroders Greencoat: action.stopsizewellc.org/greencoat
Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation: action.stopsizewellc.org/emirates
Centrica: action.stopsizewellc.org/centrica
and your Independent Financial Advisor - suggested text below.
Text of Standard Messages
1. To the Chancellor
“As you carry out your multi-year spending review, I am reminded of your statement to Parliament during your mini-budget last year – “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it”. I appreciate that you face many difficult choices, but with the Financial Times reporting that Sizewell C will cost at least £40 billion, I urge you not to throw more taxpayers’ money at this expensive, risky project that will raise energy bills during its lengthy and unpredictable construction. For alternative strategies that will help meet the UK’s 2030 target and create many thousands of jobs, I urge you to focus on renewables and energy efficiency.”
2. To Investors
“I understand that you may still be considering investing in Sizewell C, which is likely to cost in excess of £40 billion. You will be aware that Sizewell C is an inherently risky project. Although it is intended to be an 80% above-ground copy of Hinkley Point C, its shingle coast location will present numerous unique and costly challenges that are likely to absorb any potential savings during construction, and make Sizewell C expensive to keep safe from the sea over the long-term.
If it went ahead, Sizewell C would be the first UK nuclear power station for which energy bill payers would both carry risk and pay costs during a lengthy and uncertain construction period. This impact on hard-pressed households may mean the government is not willing to give you the returns you seek or de-risk the project to the extent that your shareholders consider acceptable. The RAB funding model is controversial and this – along with the controversial nature of the project itself – will bring reputational risk to your company, especially given Sizewell C cannot help the UK decarbonise the grid by 2030 and its electricity would be more expensive than that available from renewable sources.
I hope you will consider these issues and your shareholders carefully and decide not to invest in Sizewell C.”