Boris Johnson says ‘madness’ not to build Sizewell C nuclear plant as he promises £700m investment
Boris Johnson has claimed that if Hinkley Point C had already been built, it would have slashed fuel bills by £3 billion.
He already said it would be “madness” not go ahead with the Sizewell C nuclear plant.
He went on:
That’s why we need to pull our national finger out and get on with Sizewell C.
That’s why we’re putting £700 million into the deal, just part of the £1.7 billion of government funding available for developing a large-scale nuclear project to final investment stage FID (final investment decision) in this parliament.
And in the course of the next few weeks, I am absolutely confident that it will get over the line, and we will get it over the line because it would be absolute madness not to.
Key events
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Johnson, who is now taking questions from the media, is asked about coming support for households and whether he had spoken to either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak about plans to protect households.
Johnson reiterated the support the government had already provided but said it was “clear that come the new administration, there is going to be a further package”.
He says:
We have the fiscal firepower to sort it out.
We do have a robust employment situation, we have the revenues coming to the exchequer to enable us to help people.
That gives us the strength to continue to support people.
The outgoing prime minister suggested that nuclear energy was one of “medium and long-term” options.
Johnson said he expects “substantial sums” of cost of living help to be provided by his successor.
Speaking at Sizewell in Suffolk, the prime minister said:
We’re helping people now with the cost of living and of course there will be more cash to come, whoever takes over from me, in the months ahead – substantial sums, that’s absolutely clear.
He added that offshore wind is now nine times cheaper than gas because of the “insanity of what Putin has done”. Johnson says the Russian leader believes the West will “flinch”.
Johnson says he is wrong about the resolve of both the British people and European governments. He will fail, says Johnson.
Boris Johnson says ‘madness’ not to build Sizewell C nuclear plant as he promises £700m investment
Boris Johnson has claimed that if Hinkley Point C had already been built, it would have slashed fuel bills by £3 billion.
He already said it would be “madness” not go ahead with the Sizewell C nuclear plant.
He went on:
That’s why we need to pull our national finger out and get on with Sizewell C.
That’s why we’re putting £700 million into the deal, just part of the £1.7 billion of government funding available for developing a large-scale nuclear project to final investment stage FID (final investment decision) in this parliament.
And in the course of the next few weeks, I am absolutely confident that it will get over the line, and we will get it over the line because it would be absolute madness not to.
The outgoing prime minister says the main opposition to new nuclear reactors being built is “nimbyism”.
He says he has diagnosed the problem as “myopia” and “short-termism”. Johnson adds:
It is a chronic case of politicians not being able to see beyond the political cycle. For thirteen years, the previous Labour government did absolutely nothing to develop this country’s nuclear industry. They said it didn’t make economic sense, they even said that in their manifesto.
Well, thanks a bunch Tony and thanks a bunch, Gordon. Tell that to British industries that are now desperately short of affordable and reliable electricity. Tell that to families struggling with the cost of heat and light this winter.
He also goes on to blame Nick Clegg for saying the UK shouldn’t build more nuclear power stations like Sizewell C in the run-up to the 2010 general election because “it wouldn’t even be completed until 2021 or 2022”.
As per usual, there is little acknowledgement of the fact the Tories have been in power for 12 years and that he has been prime minister for the past three years…
Speaking from Sizewell in east Suffolk, Boris Johnson begins by talking about a “much-thumbed” Ladybird book he owned as a child, which was called The Story of Nuclear Power.
He says he was “enthralled” to read how UK scientists split the atom for the first time at the Cavendish laboratories in Cambridge. He said he noted how the world’s first civilian nuclear power station was built in Cumbria.
He continues:
I look back at the optimism in the pages of that book and I look at what has happened since and at the short-termism of successive British governments and their failure to do justice to our pioneering nuclear history … and I feel like one of those beautifully drawn illustrations of that Ladybird book of what happens in a nuclear pile.
The graphite rods are taken out at the wrong moments and my blood starts to boil and steam starts coming out of my ears and I think I’m going to meltdown. I ask myself the question: ‘What happened to us?’.
He asks if we have lost the “gumption and dynamism of our parents and grandparents”.
The outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson is due to make a speech on energy at midday.
It is understood that he is set to predict the UK will enjoy a future involving “cheap, clean, reliable and plentiful” energy, amid reports he will confirm the sign-off for a new nuclear power station.
The speech will take place during a visit to Suffolk – one of his last as prime minister – and we will bring you all the top news lines from it here shortly.
Damian Carrington
The energy crisis is hitting UK household budgets harder than any country in western Europe, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund. The difference between the cost burden on poor and rich households is also far more unequal in the UK compared with other countries.
The reason is the UK’s heavy reliance on gas to heat homes and produce electricity at a time when Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent gas prices soaring. In addition, the UK has the least energy efficient homes in western Europe.
There is widespread agreement from energy experts on the best solutions: a large-scale and rapid insulation programme and a faster roll-out of wind and solar energy, which produce electricity that is currently about nine times cheaper than that from gas, as well as short-term financial support for bill payers. The government has consistently failed over the past decade to deliver major insulation programmes and has effectively banned onshore wind.
The IMF analysis assessed the impact of the energy crisis expected over the whole of 2022, based on forward fossil fuel prices in May, since when prices have risen. It found that the average UK household is expected to lose 8.3% of its total spending power in 2022, as a result of having to pay higher energy bills. The figure in Germany and Spain is 4%, while only Estonian and Czech households face higher impacts than the UK in the whole of Europe.
‘I know what it’s like not being able to pay bills’, says Starmer
Keir Starmer told listeners to his BBC Radio 5 Live phone-in this morning that he knows what it is like not being able to pay bills, amid rising concerns over the cost of living crisis.
The Labour leader spoke about his own childhood as he was pressed on how his party would help struggling families.
He said:
I actually do know what it is like to sit around the kitchen table not being able to pay your bills.
It comes as UK households will see spending power cut by an average £3,000 by the end of next year unless the new government acts to counter the biggest drop in living standards in at least a century, research has indicated.
The Resolution Foundation thinktank said soaring energy bills would cut household incomes by 10% and push an extra 3 million people into poverty.
Starmer said he remembered the phone being cut off for “months at a time”, adding that he was not claiming “great poverty” but he said there were times his family could not pay for utilities.
He added:
Millions of people will be having that anxious conversation as we speak now.
Caroline Davies
Michael Gove has dismissed speculation he intends to quit politics, saying he is “definitely planning to stay in parliament”.
Gove, sacked by Boris Johnson as levelling up and housing secretary after privately advising the prime minister to stand down, laughed off suggestions he could become a newspaper editor.
Of his relationship with the prime minister, he dismissed suggestions he had been sacked in revenge for turning on Johnson in 2016. He said Johnson wanted to “stand and fight and in order to do so he needed to show he was reconstructing his government”.
He said: “I have both a reservoir of affection for Boris and great respect for what he did in office as well.”
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gove, who is backing the former chancellor Rishi Sunak to be the next prime minister, said the frontrunner, Liz Truss, had “moved more on to the territory” staked out by Sunak over tackling the cost of living crisis during the course of the Conservative leadership campaign.
He said Truss had acknowledged she needed to flesh out some of her earlier points.
The Labour leader was also quizzed on how his party would deal with the Northern Ireland protocol during a Q&A on BBC Radio 5 Live.
Keir Starmer told a Belfast listener there could not be a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, adding: “We have got the protocol in place and we should build on that, not rip it up.”
Asked by presenter Nicky Campbell why the UK couldn’t just “tweak it”, he said:
The government has said it is going to rip it up – that is what is destroying our reputation internationally.
Starmer said that a veterinary agreement between the UK and the EU would make a “massive difference”. “The EU has got to give and take as well”, he stressed.
Labour energy policy not ‘kicking the can down the road’, insists Starmer
Keir Starmer has denied that Labour’s energy policy amounts to “kicking the can down the road”, but acknowledged that something will have to be done early next year to tackle the crisis in the longer term.
During a Q&A on BBC Radio 5 Live, the Labour leader was quizzed on his plans to tackle soaring energy bills going beyond the middle of next year, the Press Association reported.
One listener told him: “The public is more leftwing than the Labour party at the moment.” Starmer replied: “I don’t accept that is kicking the can down the road.”
He said his party’s plan is “meeting the concerns of millions of people”. He added that he understood the scale of the challenge facing households, adding that “many people listening and watching this will be saying: ‘I can’t afford that”’.
Pressed on his longer-term plans, he pointed to his party’s call for a national mission on home insulation.
“On the question of what we do long term, I am completely up for that challenge,” he told the programme. “I accept the challenge that something has got to be done in April.”
Meanwhile, the former Tory cabinet minister Michael Gove has said he will carry on as an MP.
He has previously said he does not expect to be in government again. It comes as the Liberal Democrats move to confirm a candidate for Gove’s Surrey seat amid speculation he is considering quitting parliament, which would spark a byelection.
Lib Dem officials are planning for a possibly imminent campaign in which the party would fight on issues including the state of local hospitals and plans to drill for gas locally.
Gove told Times Radio:
I’m going to stay on as an MP. I’m going to make arguments for the vital importance of carrying on with the levelling up mission that Boris [Johnson] started.
I’m going to be arguing very strongly for a focus on education, on the environment, on prison reform, that is compassionate, and progressive, and in the best traditions of the Conservative party.
And I’ll be doing that as the majority of Conservative MPs do, from the backbenches. I’ll also be looking out for my constituents in Surrey Heath and making sure that I’m representing them effectively.
Truss rules out energy rationing this winter at final Tory hustings
The chancellor’s assertion that “nothing is off the table” came as the Conservative leadership frontrunner, Liz Truss, ruled out energy rationing this winter as she clashed over the cost of living crisis with her rival, Rishi Sunak, at the final hustings in London last night.
The foreign secretary rejected the proposal, despite it being a key fall-back measure in the government’s “worst case” contingency planning.
However, Sunak said “we shouldn’t rule anything out” after the French government warned it may have to ration energy, urging company bosses to take steps to curb consumption.
As he made his final pitch to party members, the former chancellor added:
The challenges we face with this crisis are significant. Many European countries are looking at how we can all optimise our energy usage, that is a sensible thing for us to be doing as a country.
Asked by the LBC broadcaster Nick Ferrari at the last hustings before voting closes on Friday whether she could rule out energy rationing, Truss replied:
I do rule that out. Yes.
Under the government’s latest “reasonable worst case scenario”, published in August, businesses and even consumers could face blackouts this winter as concerns grow over power supplies.
Officials believe that without energy rationing, the UK could experience blackouts for several days in January if cold weather combines with gas shortages to leave the country short of power.
Current government support ‘of course’ not enough, says chancellor
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog.
As the race to become the next Conservative leader and next prime minister enters the final furlong, we will be bringing you all the news and reaction from last night’s hustings.
But we start with comments from the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, who probably hasn’t even bothered unpacking at No 11 Downing Street and is likely to be out of a job by Monday.
He said this morning that said “of course” the current level of support offered by government to deal with rising energy prices will not be enough, but that his team is looking at options for the next administration.
Speaking to Sky News, Zahawi said:
My pledge to your viewers is more help beyond the £37bn will also be coming. At the moment we’re midway of spending about £37bn.
Asked whether it went far enough, he replied:
Of course it’s not, which is why the moment I walked in to the Treasury on 5 July I gathered my leadership team, I said: ‘One, how are we doing on delivering the help?’ Because it’s one thing to announce it, very different to get it into people’s accounts.
And there was a big focus on that. But equally importantly I said we need to prepare options for the incoming prime minister.
The chancellor also said that “there’s nothing off the table” in terms of options the government is assessing for how to deal with rising energy prices.
He said:
There’s nothing off the table. We are looking at all the options. Everything from the chief executive of Scottish Power talking about help where we need to maybe create some sort of a fund for companies to be able to continue to help their customers.
All the way through to making sure we target the help to both households and small and medium-size businesses and probably some larger businesses, because one of my concerns is the scarring effect on the economy if perfectly viable businesses in hospitality, in leisure, in high-energy use businesses would actually suffer or no longer exist because of Putin’s use of energy as a weapon.