Summary

The Government has announced a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, directly reporting to the Prime Minister, to “spearhead” nuclear regulations to encourage home-grown development of nuclear energy. 

• Given the critical importance of developing clean, cheap energy, this announcement is extremely welcome.
• The UK’s energy costs are among the highest in the world. This is a major constraint on economic growth. There is a growing consensus that high-income, low-energy countries don't exist, and economists have overwhelmingly called for boosting energy supply to be one of the top priorities for the government.
• After years of declining demand, the UK is projected to see its need for electricity increase, as more households switch to electric vehicles and heat pumps.
• Delivering on the Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan will also require accelerating energy production in the UK, for AI Growth Zones, as AI drives demand for more - and more powerful - data centres. 
• A wave of private investment, and advances in small modular reactors (SMR) mean that privately funded reactors could be delivered quickly if the UK can clear the regulatory blockers.
• However, a Taskforce is not an end in itself; the goal is to deliver nuclear power. We can learn from the experience of the Vaccines Taskforce (VTF) and Frontier AI Taskforce, to build effective and durable state capacity for delivery.
• To make the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce a success, the Government should ensure that it has:
• 1. A clear objective, with measurable, concrete targets and deadlines. We suggest that these targets could include:
  2. • Deliver at least one ‘grid scale’ SMR, at a cost competitive with building wind power and the required gas or battery backup.
     • Enable at least one private developer to build an SMR without Government funding.
  2. A single-point empowered, accountable leader who is able to act freely without excessive bureaucratic constraints.
  3. Direct access to relevant technical expertise, to sift between viable candidate reactors, promote promising new entrants, and learn from international best practice.
  4. Ownership of the regulatory process, from start to finish, to ensure that these improvements result in the delivery of new nuclear capacity.

Challenge & Opportunity

The Government's announcement of a Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce is extremely welcome. The UK’s energy costs are among the highest in the world. This is a major constraint on UK growth. There is a growing consensus that high-income, low-energy countries don't exist, and economists have overwhelmingly called for boosting energy supply to be one of the top priorities for the new government.

After years of declining demand, the UK is projected to see its need for electricity increase, as more households switch to electric vehicles and heat pumps, and as AI drives demand for more powerful data centres. The last nuclear reactor to be installed in the UK was at Sizewell B in Suffolk in 1991, and we need to make up for lost time to deliver enough electricity to match projected demand. The regulatory process for nuclear energy is currently not up for the challenge, and needs to be jolted back to life.

But there is also good news. Advances in Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology and a wave of private capital gives us a unique chance to capture significant investment whilst building clean power without the taxpayer having to pick up the bill.

A taskforce can help unblock regulatory barriers to nuclear. However, a Taskforce is not an end in itself: we must learn from the lessons and principles of previously successful Taskforces, such as the Vaccines Taskforce (VTF) and the Frontier AI Taskforce, to build effective and durable state capacity for delivery.

The Vaccines Taskforce (VTF) is widely regarded as one of the most successful aspects of the UK’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Taskforce enabled the UK to secure a large number of vaccines at a time of significant uncertainty over their effectiveness and deliver them to the population quickly. The results were clear: the UK delivered the first COVID-19 approved vaccine outside of a clinical trial, anywhere in the western world.

It is also widely accepted that, before the VTF was set up, pre-existing government structures and their strong links to industry were geared towards a business-as-usual approach that would not have been able to deliver the fast-paced, high-risk bets that were needed. The VTF could operate efficiently because it sidestepped established standard processes and bureaucracy, which was particularly important in a highly uncertain environment. 

The Vaccine Task Force's success shows how breaking away from existing processes can be beneficial. This is essential for the quick deployment of critical infrastructure for the emerging AI sector, would lower bills for households and businesses, result in unlocking immediate investment and contribute to economic growth. The UK risks falling permanently behind if it does not act quickly.

This briefing sets out key principles for how the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce should operate based on insights from the success of the VTF. These also draw on advice from the UK’s former Chief Scientific Adviser, and current Minister for Science, Innovation and Technology, Lord Vallance, and his interview with Andrew Bennett, one of the authors of this piece.

Plan of Action

1. A clear objective

The new Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce should have a clear objective, with measurable, concrete targets and deadlines. This is one of the reasons for the Vaccine Taskforce’s success: it had a very clear remit and purpose. It was established to ensure the effective deployment of a vaccine for the whole population by the end of the year. A clear target meant that every action taken could be measured against this goal by asking the question of how an intervention improved vaccine availability and distribution.

A similarly defined aim for rapid commercial deployment of nuclear reactors would significantly improve the odds of success for the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce. The overriding goal should be simple: deliver SMRs in the UK. 

This could then be further broken into two clear targets, to be met by 2030, for example:

• Deliver at least one ‘grid scale’ SMR, at a cost competitive with building wind power and the required gas or battery backup.
• Enable at least one private developer to build an SMR without Government funding.

Meeting these targets could deliver up to 500 MW of power, but more importantly, they would demonstrate how entire fleets could be rolled out - reducing longer term cost. In meeting these concrete goals, the Taskforce would light the way for a nuclear powered 2030s.

Crucially, the Taskforce should not be encumbered with broad and unfocused secondary goals. It must be able to push consistently and without distraction. Focused aims would give the Taskforce’s leaders the credibility and political backing to move with ambition and pace to deliver new nuclear power by 2030.

2. A single-point empowered, accountable leader

The new Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce should have a single-point, accountable leader. It is notable that both the VTF and the Frontier AI Taskforce had leaders with significant entrepreneurial and private sector experience. 

By concentrating power and responsibility on a single executive, the VTF was able to sidestep many of the common blockers to quick delivery. Government processes can be slow and cumbersome, and are funded through multi-year cycles that often do not work for time-sensitive projects. 

As in the case of vaccine development and deployment, lengthy parallel approval processes currently hold back nuclear power development, which the PM or Parliament had the power to override or sidestep. The delays caused by hundreds of individual demands and requirements make this impossible without a single empowered leader focusing on them.

It would be enormously beneficial to the UK if our regulation of commercial nuclear reactors were internationally competitive. The new Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce could create a blueprint for delivering nuclear energy which is a much-needed shot in the arm for the nuclear regulatory system. 

In the case of vaccines, this meant having a team which focused only on getting safe vaccines in arms, by intensely working on overcoming any obstacle in the way with no departmental constraints and overwhelming support from the top. To make sure that the team has as much freedom of action as possible, and works as innovatively as feasible, the responsible leader had to be someone with considerable experience with new and disruptive technologies. The same is true for safe nuclear power.

The choice of an experienced and decisive leader also made possible decisions such as the choice of a portfolio approach, where the VTF deliberately made a number of bets on different technologies, knowing that some might not be successful. Given the range of different possibilities in the space of smaller scale nuclear reactors, it is likely that a Taskforce that is focused on existing industry processes or reliant on the knowledge base of established insiders would fail to create a regulatory system that allows rapid innovation.

3. Direct access to relevant technical expertise 

The new Nuclear Taskforce should be given both in-house expertise and direct access to external expertise. This was critical for both the VTF and the Frontier AI Taskforce. 

Government structures are often too slow to translate expert opinion and assessments into actionable policy interventions. Layers of bureaucracy can create barriers to communication between senior leadership and technical experts, which can result in time wasted on unviable solutions before leaders are informed of the limitations of any given approach. More direct access to technical expertise can accelerate the process of finding viable solutions, and ensure that the Taskforce can quickly identify viable solutions.

In the case of the VTF, this meant engaging directly with manufacturing experts who could quickly identify actually feasible candidates, as opposed to going through established channels which insist on digesting, redigesting, and summarising information before filtering candidates. For nuclear this means the leader of the Taskforce  – the PM’s representative – should talk directly to the innovators with experience of delivering new reactors.

The UK’s Frontier AI Taskforce also demonstrated the importance of access to relevant, technical expertise. The Taskforce, which included several AI experts and entrepreneurs, led to the development of the AI Safety Institute, a first-of-its-kind organisation which has been replicated in countries around the world, including the US and Singapore. AISI’s success in part lies in its ability to hire technical talent outside of the civil service’s ordinary processes, as explored in this UK Day One briefing.

To deliver on its ambition, the new Nuclear Taskforce must assess the regulatory system and ensure that it is able to rapidly and efficiently test:

• The viability of reactor designs
• Potential sites
• Safety features of some building decisions
• Any other relevant factors for the rapid commercial deployment of new nuclear power

The Taskforce should also look at potentially duplicative assessment processes, such as the requirement for Regulatory Justification, which sits with DEFRA and slows down SMR development.

The Taskforce should also look beyond our current regulatory environment and existing technological solutions. Crucially, it should draw on the expertise emerging from new companies and reactor designs successfully delivered and deployed in other countries, like South Korea. These reactors have a much smaller footprint and significantly higher safety standards than current UK designs, and accelerating the deployment of new technological solutions will be key to achieving its goals on nuclear technology. Giving the Taskforce direct access to this critical expertise will be essential to its effectiveness.

4. Ownership of the process, from start to finish

The new Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce should have some level of ownership of the entire process of nuclear regulation. This was a key reason for the VTF’s success. The VTF was responsible for not just the procurement of vaccines but also their manufacturing and distribution. This meant that it could intervene at various stages, in parallel rather than sequentially, to help unblock delivery problems. For example, it could influence the R&D and manufacturing stages, and ensure that there was follow-through between its procurement of multiple potential vaccine solutions, and eventually delivering them to the population in sufficient quantities.

Similar problems in the regulatory process for nuclear power stifle its development. It will not work to simply set out a set of policy principles which are then implemented via the traditional Departmental four stage process. The current processes for nuclear regulation deliver neither certainty nor speed, and therefore fail to create the rapid and predictable regime that is necessary if the UK is to win any international investment in this space.

The nuclear Taskforce will need to identify sites, identify a promoter to build on them, work out every blocker that would stop the plant being delivered cheaply or quickly, including NGO stakeholders, local views, local government, departmental stakeholders, regulators, and more. In nearly all of these cases, sufficiently focused and narrowly applied direction from the PM can get the right result. In a small number of further cases, Parliament may need to intervene. 

Together with a single, accountable leader, and clearly defined objectives, ownership of the whole process enables the task force to take bolder bets. One hallmark of the VTF was an "at-risk" portfolio approach, strategically investing in multiple vaccine candidates with the understanding that failures were inevitable but critical to maximising the likelihood of success. The VTF’s agile and decisive strategy proved highly effective, demonstrating a new benchmark for government responsiveness and its ability to accelerate critical innovation during a crisis. This approach can be replicated for nuclear to power the next British industrial revolution.