Where next for nuclear as Labour’s ‘unaccountable quango’ faces axe?

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

Fresh doubts have surfaced over plans to build a fleet of nuclear power stations in Britain after the Government pledged to scrap a planning agency designed to accelerate construction of new reactors and other big energy projects.

Greg Clark, the new Communities Minister, confirmed to The Times that the Infrastructure Planning Commission, created by Labour only seven months ago to streamline Britain’s fragmented planning system, would be disbanded.

In the first official comment on the IPC’s future since the formation of the Lib-Con coalition, Mr Clark said that the Government was “committed to abolishing this unaccountable central planning quango”. He indicated that the IPC would be replaced in due course, but declined to say when this would happen or how it would be done.

The remarks triggered a backlash from the nuclear industry, which fears that renewed uncertainty over planning issues will deter the tens of billions of pounds of investment needed to build the new plants.


Clare Spottiswoode, the chairman of Energy Solutions Europe, an American-owned group that helps to manage five nuclear sites in Britain, including Sizewell and Dungeness, said: “People are already nervous and this is just another area of uncertainty. The risk is they will just take their money elsewhere.”

Ian Marchant, the chief executive of Scottish & Southern Energy, which is part of a joint venture to build new reactors at Sellafield, said that he was “unhappy” about the decision. “We have just had a change to the planning system,” he said. “To change it again will just mean more delays.”

Ms Spottiswoode said that the industry was already concerned that the appointment of Chris Huhne as Energy Secretary had seriously dented confidence in the sector.

Each of the 11 proposed nuclear power plants will cost nearly £4.5 billion and have a capacity of up to 1,600 megawatts of electricity — enough to supply two million homes for up to 60 years.

Companies such as EDF, of France, and RWE and E.ON, of Germany, are expected to pay, but the economics of building the plants remains risky because of their high cost.

One industry insider said that RWE and E.ON, in particular, were “very skittish” about the outcome of the election and the appointment of Mr Huhne and the implications for the nuclear industry. “They cannot believe it,” he said. “The decisions about whether to invest in Britain will be made in Germany — and from Germany this really does not look good.”

The nuclear plants are considered essential if Britain is to have a realistic chance of meeting its goal of cutting CO2 emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 and to prevent it developing overreliance on gas-fired power plants.

The IPC was created as part of a move to strip local authorities of the ability to block or delay projects considered to be of high national priority. An important plank of the policy was to separate national decisions from individual planning concerns.

However, Mr Clark said that the organisation “patently lacks” accountability. He added: “We need to speed up the planning system and deliver new infrastructure like power generation. But it is vital that there are proper democratic checks and balances.”

The IPC, whose budget is £9.3 million, has 40 employees and was due to start considering applications on March 1. However, its work was delayed because guidelines were not approved by Parliament. The IPC’s chairman is Sir Michael Pitt, who is paid £184,000 a year for a four-day week. The body has offices in Bristol and has hired dozens of staff, including seven commissioners on salaries equivalent to £100,000 per year.

Adrian Bull, spokesman for Westinghouse, the American manufacturer of reactors, said: “It is very important that the UK nuclear industry has clarity over how planning applications will be dealt with and also the confidence that they will be dealt with in a timely way.”