Britain can’t grow while we’re spending £700m to save the life of a fish
With measly growth and energy among the most expensive in the developed world, Britain’s got bigger fish to fry than sealife conservation, writes Lawrence Newport
Imagine you’re the Chancellor, sitting in 11 Downing Street, the day before what has been billed by some as a make-or-break Budget not just for your career, but for the future fortunes of millions across the country. Now imagine a widely respected report just landed on your desk with 47 radical recommendations that, altogether, would almost certainly reduce every business and household’s energy bills. Would you accept all of those proposals, or not?
That’s the choice facing Rachel Reeves right now. Today, she has the opportunity to take the radical action necessary to begin to fulfil the government’s promise to ‘fix the foundations’ of our economy. Her decision will tell us whether she actually prioritises the British people, or if she is more interested in process and consensus in Whitehall’s corridors. If she accepts all of the Nuclear Regulatory Review’s suggestions, British energy can start to become cheap again. If she doesn’t, decline will continue: our energy will remain amongst the most expensive in the developed world, and we will all suffer from sky-high bills and a rising cost of living.
Since the summer, leaks, briefings and speculation – which in and of themselves are economically damaging – have fuelled debate in Westminster about tax rises, spending cuts and how best to fill the black hole. But most of this discourse ignores the point: unless we fix the foundational problems stopping sustained economic growth, and until we make Britain rich again, our nation’s stagnation and decline will not end. Tinkering around the edges and repeating the same conversations and mistakes will not work.
For decades, an ever-expanding behemoth of agencies, consultations, legal challenges, reviews and rules has burdened our energy sector with uncertainty and unnecessary costs. But it didn’t have to be this way. It does not need to cost over five times more to build a nuclear reactor in the UK than in South Korea. Civil and defence programmes do not need to suffer from endless delays and go millions over budget, nor should they be expected to spend £700m to protect the life of one single fish per year or produce over 30,000 pages of environmental statements and assessments. There was nothing inevitable about average annual household energy bills increasing by 50 per cent over the last 10 years. The choices of our politicians are responsible for these problems.
It is time to break this costly cycle of bureaucracy, bottlenecks and ballooning bills, and to actually do government differently. As the independent report outlines, a labyrinth of red tape, combined with a ‘culture of complacency and extreme risk aversion’, has taken Britain from a world-leading pioneer of nuclear energy to not even finishing the construction of a nuclear power plant this century. But this can change. As these proposals demonstrate, our politicians can choose a new approach.
Nuclear review can power up Britain
These reforms, if adopted in full by the government, would streamline planning for nuclear power plants, stop endless taxpayer-funded judicial reviews responsible for delays and cost overruns of many projects, simplify remaining rules to avoid excessive spending and automatically approve reactor designs previously accepted for use in the UK, cutting out hundreds of millions previously spent on regulators, lawyers and consultants. In short, these changes would be transformational.
Altogether, it would give certainty to businesses and investors. The merry-go-round of spurious court cases and design modifications would end, meaning companies could work on numerous projects at once without the threat of being forced to ditch existing plans. In turn, this would change the process-focused, risk-phobic culture that has made building nuclear infrastructure in the UK functionally illegal.
Such a significant shift would set Britain on a clear path towards affordable energy and, consequently, economic growth. Indeed, reducing energy prices is a prerequisite for any government hoping to reverse decades of stagnation and decline. With cheaper energy,
British businesses could start and scale here uninhibited. In fact, lower energy costs have positive benefits throughout the economy: they ripple through supply chains, cut the overheads of every factory, farm and high street shop, and make Britain a more attractive place to build, from data centres and biotech labs to new homes and shopping centres. Cheaper power means lower inflation, strengthened international competitiveness, and enables wages to go further than before. Combined, these improvements would begin to make Britain rich again.
At Looking for Growth, we are calling on the government to accept all of the proposals. We believe that it is only through cheap and abundant energy that Britain can make the future again. In fact, it is only through affordable energy prices that businesses can build, industries can thrive and breakthroughs in AI and science can be made. Without cheap energy, none of this is possible. With it, Britain has the chance to return to its status as the centre of global expertise and investment.
We have heard warm words about growth before; successive governments have promised to cut red tape, accelerate infrastructure development and harness the power of global investment to benefit the British people. But promises alone do not build power plants. They do not lower bills. They do not reverse decline. What we need now is action.
Rachel Reeves must make a decision. If the Chancellor really is as serious about growth as she says, if she actually wants to make our energy cheap again, she will accept all of the Nuclear Regulatory Review’s recommendations. If she does not, she will have failed to prioritise the British people, and failed to deliver the change they voted for.
Dr Lawrence Newport is the co-founder of Looking for Growth