It’s over! Anti-nuke dump campaigners in East Lincolnshire celebrate victory
The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are delighted to share in
the celebrations of East Lincolnshire residents and their elected members
as Nuclear Waste Services announces that it shall now take the ‘immediate
steps needed to close the Community Partnership and the communities of
Withern and Theddlethorpe, and Mablethorpe will leave the GDF (Geological
Disposal Facility) siting process’.
The announcement came hot on the
heels of the decision this morning by the Lincolnshire County Council
Executive to withdraw its support from the GDF process.
NFLA 3rd June 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/its-over-anti-nuke-dump-campaigners-in-east-lincolnshire-celebrate-victory/
Priming us up for war – “it’s not so bad, after all” – Britain’s Labour government leads the way
The Unseen March video from 9 years ago – but now it’s getting worse. https://theaimn.net/priming-us-up-for-war-its-not-so-bad-after-all-britains-labour-government-leads-the-way/
On the outskirts of Berlin, you can visit what’s left of Sachsenhausen , one of the first Nazi concentration camps, set up in 1936, as a model for the more than 44,000 such camps they ran between 1933 and 1945.
I was impressed by the efficiency shown by the way that the Nazis carried out mass murder in this camp – which became a model for how to run this operation as quickly and with as little fuss as possible.
In the early days of the camp, the inmates were used as forced labour. Systematic extermination was carried out. Many thousands died by hunger, disease, overwork, medical experiments and mistreatment. But by 1941, tens of thousands of Jews and Soviet prisoners were being directly murdered.
I saw where this happened. Originally, the prisoners were forced down a brick path, and shot. You can still see stains on this path. But here’s the interesting bit. It turned out that the German soldiers who did the shooting became badly affected by it. Sometimes they would miss, or have to make several shots to actually kill a man. It made the soldiers unwell, having to rather messily murder their victims – it’s not like being in combat, not at all fair. It was making those soldiers mentally ill.
Here’s where the practical genius of the Nazis came in. They devised a special unit, (which was still there, when I visited a few years ago). In this unit, the shooter could be sure of doing one direct lethal hit, but the victim was placed in such a way that the shooter was unable to see him. This system solved the psychological problem of upsetting the man doing the shooting. No more mental illness, and the mass killing could proceed in an orderly way.
In a sort of sequel to this discovery, the Americans in recent years developed the efficiency of drones. targeting and killing suspected terrorists and militants in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Once again, – such a beneficial effect on the operator’s mental health. From thousands of miles away – press a button, no sight of any mess. and a beneficial effect on the the public too – all this killing being done so neatly, and so far away – so much better than an old-fashioned war battle.
So it is that the thought of war becomes much less unpleasant. With drones, and missiles, it has become a sort of distant, sort of “clean”, precision operation.
This new palatability of war comes to add to the already existing beneficial aspects of war. Getting ready for war shows that our great leaders are strong and decisive. It’s patriotic. It defends our democratic values. There are those other – nebulous, but still real, concepts of courage, heroism, and past glorious victories. The new “war-readiness” shows that we are aware, and awake-up to the threats of other countries, who undoubtedly want to attack us. And on top of all that – getting ready for war provides jobs jobs jobs!
Now Sir Keir Starmer’s UK Labour government is not so sure that the British public is convinced of all this. So they’re accentuating the already existing British trend to promote militarism. The Daily Mail announces the new education programme:
Children taught value of the military
Defence chiefs will work with the Department for Education to develop understanding of the Armed Forces among young people in schools, by means of a two-year series of public outreach events across the UK, explaining current threats and future trends.
Schools and community-based cadet forces will also be expanded, with an ambition of a 30 per cent rise by 2030 with a view to the UK having 250,000 cadets, many of whom will then go on to join the armed forces.
Those radical terrorists, The Quakers, have provided an alternative view – The military in education & youth activities. But I’m not sure that their view is widely known.
It looks as if mass education on the necessity of war is now well underway. The general public in the West is being brainwashed with the doctrine that authoritarian Russia and China are about to invade our peace-loving democracies. Sir Keir Starmer takes the initiative, showing how Labour there is in concert with the Tories. We must be ready to fight back, or perhaps better, to pre-empt such attacks. No doubt the Russian and Chinese populations are being taught a similar message, the other way around.
What now makes it easier is that we can buy ever more of those glorious distance methods, so much neater than sending our boys out for messy personal danger. The efficient Nazis got the ball rolling on this. In education Sir Keir Starmer now takes the initiative. Labour in the UK is enthusiastically backing their own and and the USA’s arms manufacturers. Weapons-making is the big thing in business now – in Europe too, and of course in the USA.
War School – The Battle for Britain’s Children – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl5Zc71KV_g
Sellafield’s race against time: nuclear waste clean-up not going quickly enough, Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “The intolerable risks presented by Sellafield’s ageing infrastructure are truly world-class. When visiting the site, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that one can be standing in what is surely one of the most hazardous places in the world.
“Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing.”
Report highlights latest picture on delays and cost rises in c.£136bn 100-year nuclear decommissioning project.
The retrieval of waste from ageing buildings at the most hazardous nuclear site in the UK is not happening quickly enough. In its report on decommissioning Sellafield, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns that the estimated £136bn cost of the project would rise even more if work is further delayed, while expressing scepticism as to whether or not recent signs of improvement in performance could represent another false dawn.
The PAC found in 2018 that government needed a firmer grip on Sellafield’s nuclear challenges, and now warns that not enough progress has been made in addressing its most significant hazards. One building, the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS), has been leaking radioactive water into the ground since 2018 – the PAC calculates, at current rates, enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool roughly every three years. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) accepts this leak is its “single biggest environmental issue”, but that the radioactive particles are “contained” in the soil and do not pose a risk to the public.
The PAC’s report finds that Sellafield Ltd has missed most of its annual targets for retrieving waste from several buildings on the site, including the MSSS. The PAC’s inquiry heard that the MSSS is the most hazardous building in the UK, and as a result of Sellafield Ltd’s underperformance will likely remain extremely hazardous for longer. The report seeks answers from Government on how it will hold the NDA and Sellafield Ltd to account in ameliorating the site’s greatest hazards.
As well as safety concerns, the PAC further warns of the impact that delays in the programme have on costs. In the long-term, waste will need to be stored in an underground Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) capable of storing it for thousands of years. The PAC finds that the date for the GDF has slipped from 2040 to the late 2050s, with every decade of delay meaning Sellafield could need to construct another storage building, each costing £500m-£760m. The GDF project is still at an early stage, with sites considered in Cumbria and Lincolnshire – though the PAC understands that Lincolnshire County Council has recently announced it is likely to withdraw.
The report highlights some recent signs of improvement in Sellafield’s delivery, with more emphasis put on planning in how it works with contractors and most recently-started projects being delivered in line with their business cases as a result. However, the report highlights the example of one of Sellafield’s project to refurbish an onsite lab so it could continue analysing waste samples – essential for safety.
The report finds that this very poorly managed and now-paused project has seen £127m wasted. Its failure, which resulted from a lack of understanding of what physical state its labs were in, and from not doing the right remedial work to address their deterioration, illustrates the need to improve asset management at Sellafield. The report urges Sellafield Ltd to explain how it is addressing the deteriorating condition of its assets, which its safety experts have warned is making the site increasingly unsafe.
The PAC’s report also finds indications of a sub-optimal culture at the site, with concerns raised in the report given that the exceptionally hazardous nature of many of Sellafield’s activities means that it is imperative that all employees and contractors on the site feel able to raise any concerns that they have without fear of consequences. The PAC is aware that the NDA paid £377,200 in 2023-24 to settle employment-related claims.
Further, the PAC previously noted that non-disclosure agreements have been used elsewhere in the public sector to cover up failure. The report finds that Sellafield Ltd has signed 16 non-disclosure agreements in the last three years. It further seeks publication from the NDA of information around the prevalence and perception of bullying and harassment in its annual report.
Chair comment
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “The intolerable risks presented by Sellafield’s ageing infrastructure are truly world-class. When visiting the site, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that one can be standing in what is surely one of the most hazardous places in the world. This is why we expect Sellafield’s management of its assets, and the delivery of the project to decommission it, to be similarly world-class. Unfortunately, our latest report is interleaved with a number of examples of failure, cost overruns, and continuing safety concerns. Given the tens of billions at stake, and the dangers onsite to both the environment and human life, this is simply not good enough.
“As with the fight against climate change, the sheer scale of the hundred-year timeframe of the decommissioning project makes it hard to grasp the immediacy of safety hazards and cost overruns that delays can have. Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life. Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing. It is of vital importance that the Government grasp the daily urgency of the work taking place at Sellafield, and shed any sense of a far-off date of completion for which no-one currently living is responsible. Sellafield’s risks and challenges are those of the present day. There are some early indications of some improvement in Sellafield’s delivery which our report notes. Government must do far more to hold all involved immediately accountable to ensure these do not represent a false dawn, and to better safeguard both the public purse and the public itself.”
UK government has already allocated £6.4bn to the Sizewell C nuclear project!
The Sizewell C Development Expenditure Subsidy Scheme (DEVEX Scheme) has
been made for £5.5bn for the Sizewell C company. Under this scheme to
date, £3.9bn has been awarded to the company, in two tranches, one of
£1.2bn and one of £2.7bn. Prior to these awards, the Department had
awarded £2.5bn to the project since the Government Investment Decision in
November 2022 under the SZC Investment Funding Scheme. Hence, in total, the
Department has to date allocated £6.4bn to the project under both subsidy
scheme.
Hansard 2nd June 2025
UIN 54121, tabled on 21 May 2025
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-05-21/54121
Sizewell C nuclear project to get go-ahead during Anglo-French summit
UK ministers hope to sign up private sector investors for new Suffolk power
plant later this month. The new Sizewell C nuclear power station is
expected to get the final go-ahead during an Anglo-French summit in London
next month, as UK ministers edge towards securing billions of investment
from the private sector.
Darren Jones, a Treasury minister, told the
Financial Times earlier this year that the final investment decision for
Sizewell C, where shareholders formally commit to the investment, would be
“at the spending review” on June 11. Ministers are expected to reaffirm
the government’s intention to invest in Sizewell in or around the
spending review, according to people close to the situation, with details
expected on how much they could allocate in taxpayer support for the
project.
However, the final go-ahead is not expected until an announcement
by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron
during the Franco-British summit in London between July 8 and July 10,
according to people close to the talks in Britain and France. By then the
government and EDF will have received final bids from several private
investors who have been given a deadline of late June, allowing the formal
final investment decision to proceed.
Groups expected to bid for a stake in
Sizewell include insurer Rothesay, backed by the Singaporean infrastructure
fund GIC, the Canadian pension fund CDPQ, Amber Infrastructure Partners,
Brookfield Asset Management, pension fund USS, Schroders Greencoat and
Equitix, people close to the talks have said. Centrica, the owner of
British Gas, has also confirmed that it is in talks to invest in the
project.
FT 3rd June 2025,
https://www.ft.com/content/25927b63-6ce5-4964-b8df-086c010148f8
Lincolnshire will not be used to store nuclear waste after the county council voted to withdraw from the process.
BBC 3rd June 2025
“People haven’t been able to sell their houses, to do whatever they want to do, to move on with their lives, so we are delighted they now can.”
Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), a government body, had earmarked an area near Louth, in East Lindsey, as a possible site for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).
Speaking after the vote to end the talks, council leader Sean Matthews said communities had been subjected to years of “distress and uncertainty”.
NWS said it would take “immediate steps” to close down the consultation.
NWS originally earmarked the former Theddlethorpe gas terminal site, near Mablethorpe, for a storage facility.
A community partnership group was formed to open talks with local communities and councils.
The government body later announced it had moved the proposed location to land between Gayton le Marsh and Great Carlton.
Lincolnshire County Council today voted to follow East Lindsey District Council’s decision to quit the partnership group.
It means that the project cannot progress in Lincolnshire because it does not have the required “community consent”.
‘Treated appallingly’
Matthews, who represents Reform UK, said the authority’s former Conservative administration should “hang its head in shame” for allowing the process to continue for four years.
“I would like to apologise to the communities who have been treated appallingly,” he said.
However, Conservative opposition leader Richard Davies said his party had “always listened to the community” and “led the charge to say no”.
Mike Crooks, from the Guardians of the East Coast pressure group, which was set up to oppose the project, said the wait for a decision had left people “unable to go on with their lives”.
“People haven’t been able to sell their houses, to do whatever they want to do, to move on with their lives, so we are delighted they now can.”
In a statement, Simon Hughes, NWS siting and communities director, said it had granted £2m to support local community projects which had “left a lasting positive legacy”.
Analysis by Paul Murphy, BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Environment Correspondent.
For the sleepy coastal village of Theddlethorpe, the four year-long “conversation” about the disposal of radioactive material has been a source of anger, distress and bewilderment…………………………………………………………..
That strong opposition grew, despite the promise from NWS of millions of pounds of investment, skilled jobs and transformative road and rail infrastructure.
Questions are being asked about how and why it took the county and district councils so long to reject the proposals when public opposition was being so powerfully expressed.
A similar nuclear disposal plan for East Yorkshire provoked similar furore and was kicked out by the local authority after just 28 days of public consultation.
The prospect of an underground nuclear disposal site in Lincolnshire appears to be dead and buried – unlike the UK’s growing pile of toxic waste from nuclear power stations.
The problem of finding a permanent and safe home for this deadly material is no longer Lincolnshire’s issue, but it hasn’t gone away. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce81471p313o
UK to build up to 12 new attack submarines
Paul Seddon, Political reporter,Jonathan Beale, Defence correspondent, BBC 1 June 25
The UK will build “up to” 12 new attack submarines, the prime minister has announced, as the government unveils its major defence review on Monday.
The new conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines will replace the seven-strong Astute class from the late 2030s onwards.
The review is expected to recommend the armed forces move to “warfighting readiness” to deter growing threats faced by the UK.
Sir Keir Starmer said the government will adopt a “Nato-first” stance towards defence, so that everything it does adds to the strength of the alliance.
The threat posed by Moscow has been a key part of the government’s pitch ahead of Monday’s review, led by ex-Labour defence secretary Lord Robertson, which was commissioned by Labour shortly after it took office last July.
The report will make 62 recommendations, which the government is expected to accept in full.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of its publication, Sir Keir said the danger posed by Russia “cannot be ignored” and the “best way” to deter conflict was to prepare for it…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Other announcements in the review will include:
- Commitment to £1.5bn to build six new factories to enable an “always on” munitions production capacity
- Building up to 7,000 long-range weapons including missiles or drones in the UK, to be used by British forces
- Pledge to set up a “cyber and electromagnetic command” to boost the military’s defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace
- Extra £1.5bn to 2029 to fund repairs to military housing
- £1bn on technology to speed up delivery of targeting information to soldiers
…………………………Submarine plans
The Astute class is the Royal Navy’s current fleet of attack submarines, which have nuclear-powered engines and are armed with conventional torpedoes and missiles.
As well as protecting maritime task groups and gathering intelligence, they protect the Vanguard class of submarines that carry the UK’s Trident nuclear missiles.
The sixth submarine in the current Astute series was launched last October, with the seventh, the final one in the series, currently under construction.
The next generation of attack submarines that will replace them, SSN-AUKUS, have been developed with the Australian Navy under a deal announced in 2021 under the previous Conservative government.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it expected the rollout of the new generation would see a submarine built every 18 months.
It added the construction programme would see a “major expansion of industrial capability” at BAE Systems’ shipbuilding site in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, as well as the Derby site of Rolls-Royce, which makes nuclear reactors.
Meanwhile work on modernising the warheads carried by Trident missiles is already under way.
The £15bn investment into the warhead programme will back the government’s commitments to maintain the continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent.
In his announcement on Monday, Sir Keir is to repeat a Labour manifesto commitment to deliver the Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines, which are due to replace the ageing Vanguard fleet from the early 2030s onwards.
The MoD’s Defence Nuclear Enterprise accounts for 20% of its budget and includes the cost of building four Dreadnought class submarines.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g2jr1m49no
Off to War We Go: Starmer’s Strategic Defence Review
June 3, 2025, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/off-to-war-we-go-starmers-strategic-defence-review/
Unpopular governments always retreat to grounds of lazy convenience. Instead of engaging in exercises of courage, they take refuge in obvious distractions. And there is no more obvious distraction than preparing for war against a phantom enemy.
That is exactly where the government of Sir Keir Starmer finds itself. Despite a mammoth majority and a dramatically diminished Tory opposition, the Prime Minister acts like a man permanently besieged, his Labour Party seemingly less popular than Typhoid Mary. His inability to be unequivocal to questions of whether he will contest the next election suggest as much.
The same cannot be said about his enthusiasm for the sword and sabre. There are monsters out there to battle, and Sir Keir is rising to the plate. Sensing this, the military mandarins, most prominently General Sir Roland Walker, head of the Army, have been more than encouraging, seeing the need to ready the country for war by 2027. Given the military’s perennial love affair with astrology, that state of readiness could only be achieved with a doubling of the Army’s fighting power and tripling it by 2030.
Given that background, the UK Strategic Defence Review (SDR) was commissioned in July 2024. Led by former Labour Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson, the freshly released report promises a fat boon for the military industrial complex. Like all efforts to encourage war, its narrative is that of supposedly making Britain safer.
Starmer’s introduction is almost grateful for the chance to out the blood lusting enemy. “In this new era for defence and security, when Russia is waging war on our continent and probing our defences at home, we must meet the danger head on.” The placing of noble Ukraine into the warming fraternity of Europe enables a civilisational twist to be made. The Russian military efforts in Ukraine are not specific to a murderous family affair and historical anxieties but directed against all Europeans. Therefore, all Europeans should militarise and join the ranks, acknowledging that “the very nature of warfare is being transformed” by that conflict.
In pursuing the guns over butter program, Starmer recapitulates the sad theme of previous eras that led to global conflict. As Europe began rearming in the 1930s, a prevalent argument was that people could have guns and butter. Greater inventories of weaponry would encourage greater prosperity. So, we find Starmer urging the forging of deeper ties between government and industry and “a radical reform of procurement,” one that could only be economically beneficial. This would be the “defence dividend,” another nonsense term the military industrial complex churns out with such disconcerting ease.
The foreword from the Defence Secretary, John Healey, outlines the objectives of the SDR. These include playing a leading role in NATO “with strengthened nuclear, new tech, and updated conventional capabilities”; moving the country to a state of “warfighting readiness”; nourishing the insatiable military industrial Moloch; learning the lessons of Ukraine (“harnessing drones, data and digital warfare”); and adopting a “whole-of-society approach”, a sly if clumsy way of enlisting the civilian populace into the military enterprise.
The review makes 62 recommendations, all accepted by the grateful government. Some £15 billion will go to the warhead programme, supporting 9,000 jobs, while £6 billion will be spent on munitions over the course of the current Parliament. A “New Hybrid Navy” is envisaged, one that will feature Dreadnought and the yet to be realised SSN-AUKUS submarines, alongside “support ships” and “autonomous vessels to patrol the North Atlantic and beyond.” Submarine production is given the most optimistic assessment: one completion every 18 months.
The Royal Air Force is not to miss out, with more F-35s, modernised Typhoons, and the next generation of jets acquired through the Global Combat Air Programme. To his splurge will be added autonomous fighters, enabling global reach.
Mindless assessments are abundant in the Review. The government promises a British army 10 times “more lethal to deter from the land, by combining more people and armoured capability with air defence, communications, AI, software, long-range weapons, and land drone swarms.” Some 7,000 new long-range weapons will be built and a New CyberEM Command established “to defend Britain from daily attacks in the grey zone.” Keeping those merchants of death happy will be a new Defence Exports Office located in the Ministry of Defence, one intended “to drive exports to our allies and growth at home.”
The fanfare of the report, festooned with fripperies for war, conceals the critical problems facing the British armed forces. The ranks are looking increasingly thinned. (In 2010, regular troop numbers stood at 110,000; the current target of 73,000 soldiers is being barely met.) Morale is ebbing. The state of equipment is embarrassingly poor. The UK’s celebrated submarine deterrent is somewhat less formidable in the deterrence department, with its personnel exhausted and subject to unpardonably lengthy stints at sea. The 204-day patrol by HMS Vanguard is a case in point.
Whether the SDR’s recommendations ever fructify remains the hovering question. It’s all very good to make promises about weapons programmes and boosting a country’s readiness to kill, but militaries can be tardy in delivery and faulty in execution. What saves the day may well be standard ineptitude rather than any firebrand conviction in war. To the unready go the spoils.
UK plan for fighter jets carrying nuclear bombs is slammed.
THE UK Government has been accused of “lurching towards war” after
reports suggested ministers were looking to purchase fighter jets capable
of carrying and firing tactical nuclear weapons.
If the Labour Government went through with the purchase, reportedly to counter the growing threat by Russia, it would be the biggest expansion of the UK’s so-called nuclear
deterrent since the Cold War. The Sunday Times reports that the Government
is taking part in “highly sensitive” talks and that US firm Lockheed
Martin’s F-35A Lightning stealth fighter jet and other aircrafts are
under consideration.
SNP MSP Bill Kidd said: “Many Scots will have concerns
about Labour spending billions of pounds of taxpayer money to expand the
UK’s nuclear arsenal at a time when many families continue to face the
impact of the cost of living crisis. “The UK’s nuclear capability is not
independent, has leaked in recent years putting workers and wildlife at
risk, frequently fails in safety tests and is highly unlikely to ever be
used.
We want an end to these dangerous weapons in Scotland, but Labour are
determined to write them another blank cheque. “Any further expansion of
the UK’s nuclear arsenal must therefore come before parliament for
democratic scrutiny.”
The National 1st June 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25206192.uk-plans-fighter-jets-carrying-nuclear-bombs-slammed/
How many nuclear submarines does the UK have – and are they ready for war?
Britain currently has a fleet of nine submarines, including four Vanguard vessels armed with the Trident nuclear system
Alex Croft, Monday 02 June 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2jr1m49no
Britain will build up to 12 new nuclear-powered submarines, Sir Keir Starmer will announce as he unveils his much-anticipated defence review.
In a bid to “ensure the UK rises to the challenge” of growing global security threats, the prime minister will say that the 130-page review is a “radical blueprint” signalling a “wave of investments” into military infrastructure and weaponry.
An extra £15bn will be spent on new nuclear warheads for the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
The plans will significantly increase the UK’s conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet, with the new vessels built under a joint deal with the US and Australia, known as the Aukus partnership.
Here’s all you need to know about the UK’s fleet of nuclear-deterrent submarines, and the proposed plans for its future:
How many submarines does the Royal Navy currently have?
The Royal Navy currently operates nine submarines, including five Astute-class conventionally armed nuclear-powered attack vessels. The Astute class is Britain’s largest and most advanced fleet of submarines.
The remaining four are Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN), which carry the UK’s Trident nuclear missile system.
A new group, the Dreadnought class, will be introduced in the early 2030s. These will be both nuclear-powered and ballistic missile-armed.
How many submarines will the UK have in the future?
Two further Astute-class submarines, HMS Agamemnon and HMS Agincourt, are set to enter service in late 2025 and late 2026 respectively.
Agamemnon is currently going through trials with the Royal Navy as part of a test and commissioning programme, while Agincourt remains under construction.
As part of the joint defence deal between the US, Australia and the UK – known as Aukus – the UK is set to significantly boost its fleet of submarines following the defence review.
An added 12 submarines would bring the UK’s fleet up to more than 20 in total. This remains far smaller than the US’s fleet of 71, and China and Russia’s fleets of 66 each.
Britain to buy fighter jets to carry nuclear weapons.
Britain wants to purchase fighter jets capable of firing tactical nuclear
weapons, in a major expansion of the deterrent intended to counter the
growing threat posed by Russia. Sir Keir Starmer’s government is in
highly sensitive talks over the move, which would represent the biggest
development in the UK’s deterrent since the Cold War and a recognition
that the world has entered a more dangerous nuclear era.
Times 31st May 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/review-fighter-jets-nuclear-weapons-x9vldt0sv
Nuclear power is back. Will it work out this time?
Britain used to lead the world but lost its way over decades of false starts. The planet’s
first small reactors could win us energy independence — at a price. The
energy secretary was very clear about the urgency of the problem. “The
British nuclear power programme has been in decline over the last
decade,” he told the House of Commons. “If we are to reverse this trend
and ensure that the industry is on a sound footing we must act now.”
This would be a very fair summary of Britain’s nuclear industry today. But
these comments were made nearly half a century ago, by David Howell in
December 1979. Fortunately, Howell, a key member of Margaret Thatcher’s
cabinet (and future father-in-law to one George Osborne), had a plan to put
things right. Construction would begin on ten new nuclear power stations in
the decade from 1982 — one a year. “We consider this a reasonable
prospect,” he assured the Commons.
Yet only one of those stations was
ever built: Sizewell B on the Suffolk coast. It was switched on in 1995.
Britain hasn’t completed a station since. This failure is not down to a
lack of ambition. Thirty years after the hubris of Howell, Ed Miliband,
during his first stint as energy secretary, again announced ten new power
stations. When he re-entered the energy department last summer, another 15
years later, construction had started on only one: Hinkley Point C.
On June 11, Milliband will confirm £2.7 billion of funding for Sizewell C, in
Suffolk, where ground preparation has begun. He will also announce a new
generation of small modular reactors (SMRs) — factory-built miniature
nuclear power generators that are seen by many as the future of the sector.
SMRs will cost a fraction of the price and take a fraction of the time to
build, and by the early 2030s will be sending vital power into our homes
… in theory.
Nobody in Britain, or indeed anywhere else, has even built a
prototype SMR. Why, one wonders, is it so fiendishly difficult to build
nuclear power stations in this country? With the sector’s questionable
safety record and such eye-watering costs, to be met through our energy
bills, do we even need new nuclear power? Next week Great British Nuclear
will announce the winner of a competition to build the UK’s first SMRs,
which will also be the world’s first if they get a move on. Four
companies are in the running: GE Hitachi, Rolls-Royce, Holtec and a
restructured Westinghouse.
Times 1st June 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/energy/article/british-nuclear-energy-what-went-wrong-future-wx2qtxqnd
Lincolnshire County Councillors move to pull the plug on nuclear waste site talks
Councillors have moved to pull the plug on talks to bury nuclear waste in
open countryside near the coast. Members of Lincolnshire County Council’s
Overview and Scrutiny Management Board have recommended the council’s
Executive withdraw from a community partnership it joined with Nuclear
Waste Services (NWS) in 2021, ending Lincolnshire’s involvement in the
Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) siting process.
Lincolnshire Live 30th May 2025, https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/lincolnshire-county-councillors-move-pull-10225069
Councillors move to end nuclear waste talks
James Turner, Local Democracy Reporting Service, BBC 29th May 2025
Councillors have moved to end talks to bury nuclear waste close to the Lincolnshire coast.
Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), a government body, had earmarked an area near Louth, in East Lindsey, as a possible site for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF).
At a meeting earlier, members of Lincolnshire County Council’s overview and scrutiny management board recommended the authority’s executive withdraws its involvement in the process.
A final decision is due to be made at the next executive meeting on 3 June……………………………………………………………………….. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czdyg8365llo
Dysfunctional: review reveals South Copeland GDF partnership at war
The NFLA has highlighted trouble on the South Copeland GDF Community
Partnership, which appears to be in disarray, with members in conflict with
an overbearing Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), and increasing opposition
within the local community. NWS has commissioned an ‘external review of
the South Copeland Partnership and suspended meetings during a critical
period when the Area of Focus in South Copeland was announced.
29th May 2025, https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/dysfunctional-review-reveals-south-copeland-gdf-partnership-at-war/
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