The government is being pressured to add an extra charge onto all our electricity bills to pay for EDF’s proposed giant new nuclear power plant in Suffolk. 

We'd all be forced to pay this ‘Sizewell surcharge’ on our electricity bills, to help finance a private company’s building project. No one will get a choice whether to pay the charge or not -- even if we choose to buy electricity from renewable suppliers. 

The government is now considering whether to proceed with this way of financing new nuclear power stations. That means if we create a huge storm now, we have a chance to force the government to listen to us -- not EDF’s lobbyists -- and back down.

French state-owned company EDF Energy is pushing to build Sizewell C nuclear power plant, with new nuclear power stations backed by the government.

But it’s an industry -- and energy strategy -- bedevilled with problems. There were plans for five new nuclear power stations in the UK, but three have been shelved. Nuclear’s so ridiculously expensive that it’s basically uneconomical without vast state support. And that’s why the UK government is considering forcing all of us to pay extra on our bills. 

We’ve already been dealt a bad hand by the government over EDF’s Hinkley C nuclear power plant in Somerset. That project has seen delays and soaring costs. You and I could end up paying £50bn to support it -- more than eight times what was estimated when the government signed its dodgy subsidy contract with EDF.

We’ll already pay £10-£15 more on every bill to finance Hinkley C, and now EDF is pitching another charge for its proposed new reactor in Suffolk. We can’t let the government and EDF put a plan in place that leave bill payers to pick up the tab if construction costs turns out to be much greater than predicted.