Taxpayer hit by £100m bill for bungled nuclear clean-up deals

A BOTCHED nuclear clean-up deal has cost taxpayers nearly £100million, it emerged yesterday.

The cash will be paid to two American firms that won a High Court case over the mishandling of the £6.1billion contract.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has dropped its appeal against the judgement and will hand £85million to Energy Solutions and £12.5million to Bechtel.

In 2014, the two firms were beaten to the 14-year clean-up contract by British firm Cavendish Nuclear, an arm of Babcock International, and Fluor of the US.

But that contract will now be ended in 2019 – nine years early – because the scale of the work was underestimated.

Energy Secretary Greg Clark has told Parliament the NDA will find a replacement solution so work can continue at 12 sites including Hinkley Point in Somerset, Dungeness in Kent and Sizewell in Suffolk. Chris Huhne, Lib Dem energy secretary from 2010 to 2012, told the BBC it was ‘a complete mess’.

He added: ‘But it is only the latest in a long line of embarrassments here, as the £100million cost of these legal settlements is a pinprick compared with the increased cost estimated of cleaning up all of our old nuclear facilities.

‘This is now ranking into the greatest public policy disasters of the post-war period and we need a real look to make sure it does not happen again.’

Mr Clark has asked former National Grid chief executive Steve Holliday to lead a ‘cradle to grave’ inquiry. ‘This was a defective procurement, with significant financial consequences, and I am determined that the reasons for it should be exposed and understood; that those responsible should properly be held to account; and that it should never happen again,’ Mr Clark said.

David Peattie, the new chief executive of the NDA, apologised unreservedly. However he added: ‘Kicking the litigation issue into the long grass is not an option.

‘This is the best outcome to prevent costs escalating for the public purse. It is clear that serious errors have been made in relation to this competition.’

It is thought cleaning up old nuclear facilities could cost between £95billion and £219billion over the next 120 years. The current annual budget of the NDA is around £3billion.