Did the last Labour government build ‘no nuclear whatsoever’?
Speaking to Sky News last week about government plans to expand Britain’s nuclear power industry, energy secretary Claire Coutinho claimed the proposals were “in stark contrast to the last Labour government who built no nuclear whatsoever”. We’ve seen similar claims from a number of Conservative politicians in recent years.
It’s true that no nuclear plants were built during Labour’s term in office from 1997 to 2010. But Ms Coutinho’s claim would benefit from some additional context, given that nuclear plants typically take a long time to build, and the period from initial proposal through to completion can be longer than any one government’s time in office. The Conservative and Conservative-led governments since 2010 have yet to complete a new nuclear power station, and the two sites they have granted new licences to—Hinkley Point C in Somerset and Sizewell C in Suffolk—were proposed under plans drawn up by the last Labour government.
The lead time on the construction of nuclear power stations can be significant. For example, Sizewell B, Britain’s newest nuclear power station, was first announced in 1969, began construction in 1988 and was connected to the National Grid in 1995.
Having initially opposed nuclear power on economic grounds, Tony Blair’s Labour government later proposed a raft of new power stations. In a speech at the CBI in 2006, Mr Blair warned that failing to build them would make it more difficult for the UK to meet climate change targets and leave the country dependent on foreign imports of gas, “mostly from the Middle East, and Africa and Russia”.
These proposals were blocked following court action by Greenpeace, but in 2009 the Labour government announced fresh plans for a new generation of power plants.
The 2010 election saw the Conservatives take power as part of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, who were at that stage opposed to further nuclear development. The Lib Dem leader at the time, Nick Clegg, had previously said it would not be worth building such plants, as they would not provide any power for at least a decade. In negotiating the agreement to enter government with the Conservatives though, a position was reached that allowed Labour’s plans to go ahead. However costs spiralled in the aftermath of the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima power station in Japan.
In addition, privatisation of electricity companies in the 1990s had resulted in what became known as the ‘dash for gas’, where investors turned away from nuclear and coal power stations and put their money into gas-fired power stations that could generate the same power output—and therefore the same level of profit—for 20% of the capital cost.
Asked why Labour had failed to build any nuclear power stations during its last term in government, current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said in a 2022 Commons exchange: “The last Labour government gave the go ahead for new nuclear sites in 2009. In the 13 long years since then, not one has been completed.”