Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the reason for the further delay in Great British Nuclear making a decision on selecting small modular reactor designs, which was to have been by the spring to allow for development contracts to be agreed by the summer, and what is now the proposed schedule.

There is no delay. At Spring Budget, we announced the launch of the next phase of the Great British Nuclear (GBN) Small Modular Reactor selection process, allowing vendors to bid for potentially multi-billion-pound technology development contracts. It is important that this process is robust. Companies will have until June to submit their tender responses, at which point GBN will assess these and negotiate final contracts, with the goal of announcing successful bidders later in 2024. The aim is for the competition to be the fastest of its kind in the world.