The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. In fact, the energy chief executive of Electricité de France, Vincent de Rivaz, told the Financial Times:
“the only thing missing is the contract for difference. Once we have that, we’ll have a compelling investment case to attract partners into the project”.
In other words, “If you don’t subsidise us, there is no business case.” Even with the prospect of subsidy, the business case is not that compelling. On Monday, Centrica pulled out of its partnership with EDF, writing off a cool £200 million and launching a share buy-back scheme to return another £500 million of unused capital to its investors. Like RWE and E.ON before it, and like any sane investor in my view, it has decided that it is not going to touch these new nuclear plans with a bargepole.