Boris Johnson frustrated with Rishi Sunak over ‘resistance’ to new nuclear power plants

Boris Johnson is privately frustrated with Rishi Sunak over the Chancellor's apparent resistance to the Prime Minister's push for a dramatic increase in the number of nuclear power plants in Britain, The Telegraph can disclose.

Government sources said Mr Sunak's refusal to endorse the Prime Minister's "big bet" on a radical expansion of the Government's plans for nuclear power risked derailing a key element of the energy security strategy promised by Mr Johnson earlier this month. 

Mr Johnson is understood to be frustrated that Mr Sunak appears reluctant to embrace a "dash to nuclear" that the Prime Minister believes is needed to shore up Britain's energy supplies long-term in the face of a crisis fueled by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

The Prime Minister is said to believe that the Treasury was at least partly responsible for scuppering earlier attempts to get nuclear energy into place, on account of its cost, and Mr Johnson urged the Chancellor to overcome resistance by officials. 

Mr Johnson is due to meet nuclear power companies on Monday to discuss how quickly new plants could be rolled out.

The tension between Mr Johnson and his Chancellor comes days before Mr Sunak's spring statement on Wednesday, when he is expected to unveil measures to address the cost of living crisis. The Chancellor's aides have refused to share details of Mr Sunak's announcements with their counterparts in No 10. 

Government sources believe it is increasingly likely that Mr Sunak will need to raise the threshold at which National Insurance Contributions (NICs) are paid in order to counter some of the effects of the NICs increase due to take effect next month.

Ministers are split over how to respond to the crisis and, this weekend, senior Tories descended into open criticism of each other over the Government's approach to the 2050 net zero target. 

Lord Goldsmith, the environment minister, ridiculed Oliver Dowden after the Conservative chairman and Cabinet minister warned that the public wanted to see "less net zero dogma" and endorsed the Prime Minister's nuclear ambitions.

Last year, Lord Goldsmith warned that nuclear was "the most expensive form of energy in the history of energy" - a criticism that Mr Johnson appeared to tackle head on last week. In an article for The Telegraph, the Prime Minister said: "So now is the time to make a series of big new bets on nuclear power. The 1997 Labour manifesto said there was 'no economic case' for more nuclear – even though nuclear is in fact safe, clean and reliable.

"It is time to reverse that historic mistake, with a strategy that includes small modular reactors as well as the larger power stations. It was the UK that first split the atom. It was the UK that had the world’s first civilian nuclear power plant. It is time we recovered our lead."

On March 7, Mr Johnson said he would set out an energy supply strategy "in the days ahead" after Russia's invasion of Ukraine pushed oil and gas prices to multi-year highs.

One government source suggested that Mr Sunak's resistance to the Prime Minister's nuclear plans was a significant factor behind the delay publishing the strategy - a claim denied by another source. The strategy is due to be published at the end of this week, or early next week. 

Defending Mr Sunak, one government source said that Mr Johnson's plans amounted to "high level ambitions", adding: "Obviously you can't sign off funding for a policy when you don't have the detail of how it's going to work yet."

The Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill currently going through Parliament sets out a funding model to incentivise private investment in new plants. Currently, the Government is only committed to financing one new nuclear plant by the next election. Mr Johnson wants to go significantly further, as some MPs push for the equivalent of eight large plants by 2050. 

All but one of Britain's existing nuclear reactors are due to be decommissioned by 2030.

In a speech to the Conservative spring conference in Blackpool on Saturday, Mr Johnson said that Britain "will make better use of our own naturally occurring hydrocarbons, rather than import them top dollar from abroad and put the money into Putin's bank account." 

His comments were welcomed by Lord Frost, the former Cabinet Office minister, and Craig Mackinlay, who chairs the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Conservative MPs, both of whom are urging the Government to reverse a ban on fracking, under which two of the country's only viable shale gas wells are set to be filled with concrete within weeks.

Lord Frost said: "I am encouraged by the Prime Minister's comments about the upcoming energy security strategy. He seems to recognise that the international situation requires us to re-examine all our existing plans fundamentally.

"If the new strategy indeed puts more emphasis on domestic hydrocarbons, including but not only shale gas, that will be very good news."

Mr Mackinlay added: "The Prime Minister is moving in the right direction, and he’s absolutely right that we’ve got to stop caving into the net zero fanatics."

Meanwhile, Stephen Brown, chief executive of Orcadian, an energy firm, called for the Government to urgently open a new licensing round for new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, stating: "British energy independence is possible but the work needs to start now."

A No 10 spokesman said: “The entire Government is working in lockstep in considering how we can support and ramp up our domestic clean renewable energy, nuclear and gas supply, because they will all play a vital role in achieving our ambitions for people, businesses and the whole of the UK.”

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Mr Sunak said it was his "mission" to "cut people's taxes".

Separately he announced the creation of a new "efficiency and value for money committee" to cut public sector waste. The annual NHS efficiency target will be doubled to 2.2 per cent.