Government announces new taskforce to ramp up nuclear skills
A new task force has been launched to ensure the UK has the right skills in the nuclear industry as part of government plans to drastically scale up nuclear capacity.
The panel will work to ensure roles are filled in the rapidly expanding defence and civil nuclear sectors, the Ministry of Defence said.
It will develop a national skills strategy for jobs across the industry, from technical scientific and engineering roles to logistics, project management, commercial and finance, PA News reports.
The task force will be chaired by Sir Simon Bollom, the former chief executive of Defence Equipment and Support, and include government officials, academics and industry partners.
Defence procurement minister James Cartlidge said:
By developing nuclear skills, we are not just investing in the UK economy but our national security.
The creation of this new task force will challenge the whole of the UK’s nuclear sector to be ambitious in addressing the nuclear skills gap, and we are delighted to appoint Sir Simon Bollom to drive this work forward.
Bollom said:
The nuclear sector is vital to our nation, and I am proud to have been given the opportunity to lead such an important task force to ensure that we have the people and skills we need to deliver our programmes.
Nuclear minister Andrew Bowie hailed a nuclear “revival” with the launch of Great British Nuclear, an arm’s-length body involved in the government-backed competition to develop smaller-scale nuclear technology projects.
I will be looking after the politics blog today. If you have any tips or suggestions, please get in touch: nicola.slawson@theguardian.com
Key events
Dismay as Rishi Sunak vows to ‘max out’ UK fossil fuel reserves
Rishi Sunak has pledged to “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves as he revealed a new round of intensive North Sea drilling, which experts said could be catastrophic for the climate.
Unveiling a plan to authorise more than 100 new North Sea licences on a visit to north-east Scotland, the prime minister also indicated he would approve drilling at the UK’s largest untapped reserves in the Rosebank field, which hold 500m barrels of oil.
Speaking to reporters on a visit to a Shell gas terminal north of Aberdeen, Sunak insisted the plan was compatible with net zero commitments given the anticipated part-reliance on fossil fuels for years to come, saying it was more carbon-intensive to ship oil and gas from other countries.
But experts said this ignored the fact that much of the UK’s imported gas comes by pipeline and tends to be produced more cleanly than its British equivalent. Environmental groups said Sunak’s plan would “send a wrecking ball” through climate commitments.
Tory and Labour MPs said Sunak’s “economically illiterate” announcement was “driving a coach and horses” through previous promises, and warned the prime minister he was “on the wrong side of history” and that modern voters wanted leaders who “protect, and not threaten, our environment”.
While the new round of licences has been in progress for many weeks, Sunak’s visit highlight the shift towards greater scepticism over green policies since the Conservatives narrowly won the Uxbridge byelection, thanks in part to concern about London’s soon-to-be-expanded ultra-low emission zone.
The new round of licences will permit drilling closer to existing projects than previously allowed, something Sunak’s press secretary said was intended to maximise the amount that could be extracted.
While Sunak has insisted he remains committed to the UK’s target to reach net zero by 2050 and other green targets, his new approach has prompted concern among some Tory MPs, who worry the party could suffer among young voters and those tempted by the Liberal Democrats.
Read the full story from my colleagues Severin Carrell, Peter Walker and Helena Horton here:
The government’s plan to triple Britain’s nuclear power generation capacity by 2050 badly lacks the strategy to actually achieve it, according to a report published on Monday.
In the report, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee backed the decision to look to nuclear power as a way to meet the UK’s electricity needs amid the race to net zero but ministers need to be clear on how they propose to get there in order to encourage investment, the committee said.
It warned that the government’s own most recent energy security plan, published in March, offers little clue about how measures will be implemented.
Committee chairman Greg Clark noted that the “stretching” ambitions to achieve 24GW of nuclear power by 2050 would be almost double the highest level of nuclear generation that the UK has ever attained.
He said:
The only way to achieve this is to translate these very high-level aspirations into a comprehensive, concrete and detailed nuclear strategic plan which is developed jointly with the nuclear industry, which enjoys long-term cross-party political commitment and which therefore offers dependability for private and public investment decisions.
Government announces new taskforce to ramp up nuclear skills
A new task force has been launched to ensure the UK has the right skills in the nuclear industry as part of government plans to drastically scale up nuclear capacity.
The panel will work to ensure roles are filled in the rapidly expanding defence and civil nuclear sectors, the Ministry of Defence said.
It will develop a national skills strategy for jobs across the industry, from technical scientific and engineering roles to logistics, project management, commercial and finance, PA News reports.
The task force will be chaired by Sir Simon Bollom, the former chief executive of Defence Equipment and Support, and include government officials, academics and industry partners.
Defence procurement minister James Cartlidge said:
By developing nuclear skills, we are not just investing in the UK economy but our national security.
The creation of this new task force will challenge the whole of the UK’s nuclear sector to be ambitious in addressing the nuclear skills gap, and we are delighted to appoint Sir Simon Bollom to drive this work forward.
Bollom said:
The nuclear sector is vital to our nation, and I am proud to have been given the opportunity to lead such an important task force to ensure that we have the people and skills we need to deliver our programmes.
Nuclear minister Andrew Bowie hailed a nuclear “revival” with the launch of Great British Nuclear, an arm’s-length body involved in the government-backed competition to develop smaller-scale nuclear technology projects.
I will be looking after the politics blog today. If you have any tips or suggestions, please get in touch: nicola.slawson@theguardian.com
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