Rt Hon Greg Clark MP
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
1 Victoria Street
London
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Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP
27th September 2016
Dear Greg,
Re. Hinkley Point C Investment Agreement
I am writing to follow up on the letter I sent you on the 29th July of this year regarding the Hinkley Point C investment agreement to which I have yet to receive a reply. I followed this letter with a Written Question tabled on 14th September speaking to the same subject.
In that note and in the Written Question, I asked that you present a new minute before Parliament detailing the liabilities that would be incurred by the signing of the final contracts with EDF for the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C.
I requested you present a revised minute before signing the final contract because of the significant increase in liabilities that will be incurred since the original minute was laid before Parliament in October 2015. In the original minute, the government estimated that the subsidies provided to Hinkley Point C through the Contract for Difference would be “in the range of £4bn to £19bn (real 2012 prices, discounted to 2012) depending on the level of future wholesale prices”.
Since that minute was published, the National Audit Office has produced a detailed report on the viability of nuclear power in the UK and significantly revised its estimates of the Contract for Difference subsidies up from £6.1 billion to £29.7 billion.
I believe this is a significant deviation from the original projected costs as presented in the Departmental Minute - and thus represents a strong a case for the Department to resubmit a revised estimate to Parliament. The minute laid before Parliament in October did not authorise the spending to which the government will now commit.
In the absence of the government presenting a revised Minute before Parliament, I am writing to ask for your written confirmation that you do have Parliamentary approval to sign the Secretary of State Investor Agreement and thus incur the increased liabilities of £29.7bn (as per the NAO estimates).
I ask that you do this before signing the Secretary of State Investor Agreement and any associated documents this week.
Yours sincerely,
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