Government announces multi-billion-pound investment to build Sizewell C

Ten thousand jobs will be created as the government announces a £14.2 billion investment to build Sizewell C nuclear plant as part of the Spending Review, ending years of delay and uncertainty. 

The Chancellor is set to confirm the funding at the GMB Congress later today ahead of the government’s Spending Review, as the Energy Secretary vows a ‘golden age’ of nuclear to boost the UK’s energy security. 

The government’s investment will go towards creating 10,000 jobs, including 1,500 apprenticeships, and support thousands more jobs across the UK. 

The company has already signed £330 million in contracts with local companies and will boost supply chains across the UK with 70% of contracts predicted to go to 3,500 British suppliers – supporting new jobs in construction, welding, and hospitality.   

The equivalent of around six million of today’s homes will be powered with clean homegrown energy from Sizewell C. The investment in clean, homegrown power brings to an end decades of dithering and delay, with the government backing the builders in the drive for energy security and kick-starting economic growth.  

The announcement comes as the government is set to confirm one of Europe’s first Small Modular Reactor programmes. This comes alongside record investment in R&D for fusion energy, worth over £2.5 billion over five years. Taken together with Sizewell C, this delivers the biggest nuclear building programme in a generation.

Clean, home-grown power at Sizewell C will help drive the UK’s energy security, as part of the government’s mission to protect family finances by replacing the UK’s dependency on fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators with homegrown power that we control.