Political Agenda this week: ‘Nuclear finds itself in an unfriendly environment’

The late former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser once endeared himself to the voting public by telling them “life wasn’t meant to be easy” when defending his government’s economic policies.

Business and energy secretary Greg Clark will know the feeling. Last week, he was in Japan holding last-gasp talks in a bid to rescue plans for a nuclear plant at Moorside in Cumbria.

As we know now, Clark’s dinner date with the Toshiba boss didn’t deliver what he wanted, as last Thursday saw the Japanese multinational announce it had pulled the plug on its project to build the plant, which was meant to deliver 7 per cent of the UK’s electricity needs.

And clocking up all those air miles didn’t win him many friends in Parliament, either – John Woodcock, MP for the coastal Cumbrian constituency of Barrow and Furness, said the people of Cumbria had been “thrown under a bus”.

Toshiba’s failure to find a buyer for its UK nuclear arm opens up a big hole in the UK’s nuclear development pipeline. Its exit, while not unexpected, comes as the nuclear sector finds itself in an increasingly unfriendly environment. The National Infrastructure Commission recently concluded the UK will only need another two large nuclear power stations as renewables provide an increasingly cost-effective alternative.

Clark was due to make a speech on low-carbon energy after Utility Week went to press. Question marks over the coherence of the UK’s energy policy are growing.