Nuclear Review 2025: UK Sets Out Blueprint to Fix a Broken System
The UK’s Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce has released its long-awaited Nuclear Regulatory Review 2025, calling for a radical overhaul of how nuclear projects are approved, overseen, and delivered. Led by economist John Fingleton, the report argues that Britain’s nuclear sector is now the world’s slowest and most expensive — not because of technology, but because of systemic regulatory failure and extreme risk aversion.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband backed the findings, saying new nuclear is essential for energy security and affordability, adding: “We’re reforming an outdated system of regulation as part of our golden age of new nuclear.”
The recommendations arrive as the UK’s electricity mix is shifting: renewables supplied 51.5% of power in 2024, while nuclear generated 14.5%, with the fleet ageing and replacement capacity needed to stabilise the system. Natural gas remained the main fossil source at 29.9%, with coal almost fully phased out at 0.8%. Against rising electricity demand — driven partly by AI data centres — the government sees nuclear as a stabilising backbone alongside renewables.
Why the Review Was Needed
According to the taskforce, the UK nuclear system suffers from a “deeply embedded culture of risk aversion and regulatory paralysis.” Projects face up to eight regulators, long planning battles, burdensome environmental rules, unclear government direction, and industry incentives that favour delay over efficiency. The result: vast cost overruns, slow builds, and stalled investment.
Fingleton argues that unless the system is reset, Britain cannot deliver the nuclear capacity needed for energy security, net-zero targets, or the expected doubling of electricity demand in the 2030s and 2040s.
Key Recommendations from the Nuclear Taskforce
The report lays out 47 reforms designed to break the cycle of delay and cost escalation. Core proposals include:
Create a unified approval system
Projects currently navigate a maze of agencies with overlapping powers. The taskforce proposes a one-stop Commission on Nuclear Regulation to act as the final decision-maker, replacing today’s fragmented oversight. In the interim, the ONR would become the designated lead regulator.
Make environmental rules proportionate
The review argues that environmental assessments have become overly process-driven, citing cases such as the £700m Hinkley Point C fish-protection system designed to save roughly one salmon per decade.
Reforms would:
Set a national benchmark for acceptable risk.
Allow developers to make contributions to a national nature fund instead of lengthy site-by-site mitigation if impacts are low.
Reduce spurious legal challenges
Nuclear projects often face multi-year delays due to legal disputes. The taskforce wants stronger safeguards so that vexatious or low-merit challenges cannot derail national infrastructure.
Approve fleets of reactors
Treating each project as bespoke wastes time and money. Fleet approval would support standardisation, repeat builds, and economies of scale, helping the UK catch up with countries building reactors far more cheaply.
Require regulators to factor in cost
The report says regulators have gradually shifted to a “zero-risk” culture that ignores affordability. New guidance would require decisions to consider cost, risk, national priorities, and deliverability together.
Modernise industry culture
The taskforce is blunt: the industry must end “gold-plating” — the tendency to design systems far beyond what is required for safety.
Recommendations include:
Major cultural reform from board level.
Faster adoption of digital tools and AI for safety assessments.
A strengthened training pipeline via the Nuclear Skills Delivery Board.
What the Reforms Aim to Deliver
The taskforce frames its recommendations as essential to meeting the UK’s wider strategic goals. At the heart of this is energy security and the path to net zero: nuclear power offers a stable, low-carbon complement to wind and solar, and the review argues that expanding the fleet is necessary if the UK is to meet rising demand and its legally binding 2050 commitments. It also highlights the economic dimension, noting that an abundant and reliable power supply is critical for industry and especially for the growing electricity needs of AI data centres, which are set to place unprecedented pressure on the grid. Beyond civilian energy, the report stresses that a healthy civil nuclear sector is inseparable from national defence, given the reliance of the UK’s submarine and deterrent programmes on the same skills, supply chains, and regulatory environment.
Taken together, the review presents its reforms as a signal to investors and industry that Britain is committed to a pro-growth, pro-investment nuclear future—one capable of delivering affordable power, strengthening the economy, and supporting long-term national security.
A Turning Point for UK Nuclear?
The taskforce is unequivocal that the UK has the scientific expertise, industrial capability, and international demand needed to revive its nuclear sector, but lacks a regulatory system able to deliver projects at pace and at a reasonable cost. It argues that the moment is now critical: either the UK resets how it approves and oversees nuclear projects, or it risks falling further behind global competitors who are building reactors faster and more cheaply.
If the government embraces the recommendations, the review suggests this could mark the start of what ministers have called a “golden age of new nuclear.” Yet it also warns that success depends on breaking free from a long-standing culture of delay, caution, and over-engineering. A genuine reset—both structural and cultural—will determine whether the UK can turn ambition into delivery and re-establish nuclear power as a cornerstone of its energy system.