British infrastructure: can we build it? No we can’t!

As anyone who has had building work done knows, the builder’s estimate is a sum roughly half the final cost. Well, that’s if you are lucky enough to find one who keeps arriving past the halfway mark of the project. 

The thought is going through the minds at EDF as they contemplate the vast hole in the ground that is the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. The company has already been driven to the brink of bankruptcy by the project. It is now (theoretically) underwritten by the French taxpayer, who is understandably seeking help from us in the UK.

In fact, twice the builder’s estimate would be a triumph here. Originally costed at £18bn (which seemed quite a lot) the latest guess – sorry, estimate – is £46bn. Like all grand projets, it is years late.

Still, we are on the brink of a new nuclear age, because the government says so. The next project is a similar power station off the Suffolk coast, Sizewell C. The UK taxpayer has now committed £2.5bn – that’s not to build it, that’s just to tick the tens of thousands of boxes before any actual work can be done. 

Someone called Andrew Bowie, wearing the albatross title of minister for nuclear, told the FT that the money “sends a strong message to investors that Britain is serious about its low-carbon, homegrown nuclear-powered future”. He also has to say that he is confident that much of the £20bn estimated cost (see above) can be found from the markets. Best of luck with that.

His boundless enthusiasm is matched only by Claire Coutinho, who labours under the title of secretary of state for energy and net zero, who tells us that the future lies in scattering mini-nukes around the country. These sound like sweet little power stations, small enough to fit into, say, a submarine, but if any are built, they will be mini only by comparison with the behemoths of Hinkley and Sizewell.

How both ministers must be yearning for the general election to release them from the burden of talking up the nuclear future.

If only we were half as good at building as we are at preparing planning documents. For Sizewell, the document index has its own index, and there are over 70,000 pages, far beyond the ability of any one individual to read and understand.

This is what we do in Britain – produce studies, reports, analyses and documents, as if that was enough. We lead the world in consultancy, legal, analysis and never-ending inquiries, but Bob the Builder is almost a threatened species. 

We were mercifully spared from funding the BritishVolt battery factory before they started building it. Unfortunately, the taxpayer was then blackmailed into a £500m subsidy for Jaguar Land Rover’s version to stop it going to Spain. Ironically, it’s already plain that Europe will have a massive surplus of car battery capacity long before the plant opens. One indication: the lithium price is down by 80 per cent from its peak.

Then there is steel, a permanent drain on the taxpayer. Another £500m is promised to turn Port Talbot green (sorry about all those lost jobs) which salves the totemic need for a national steel plant, coupled with the unachievable promise to reach Net Zero by 2050. This is what passes for an industrial strategy under a dying administration. Perhaps they could launch an official inquiry. 

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