Flawed recommendations in the Nuclear Regulatory Review

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  The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP

  Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero

  3-8 Whitehall Place

  London

  SW1A 2EG

  Sent by email

  9

  th February 2026

  Re: Flawed recommendations in the Nuclear Regulatory Review

  Dear Secretary of State,

  We are writing with the support of the parliamentarians listed below to urge you not to take an

  environmental policy misstep.

  As DESNZ considers next steps for progressing the recommendations made by the Nuclear Regulatory

  Review, we believe that three of the forty-seven recommendations are particularly flawed and would set

  back nature protection, climate and clean energy progress if implemented.

  Review recommendations 11 and 12 propose amending the Habitats Regulations to reduce the

  requirement on developers to avoid harm to nature sites when they build nuclear plants.

  Recommendation 19 proposes removing a duty on local authorities to further the conservation and

  public access purposes of National Parks and National Landscapes, which the Review authors felt

  imposed undue burdens on nuclear developers.

  Environmental groups have highlighted that these recommendations were primarily made based on just

  one nuclear case study in the review, that of the Hinkley C nuclear project. This case study included

  incorrect statistics which understated the environmental impact of the project and overstated the cost

  of environmental mitigation measures. It also omitted to set out the marginal role that environmental

  matters have played in the escalating costs and delays to the project, due largely to mistakes made by

  the developer. These result of these inaccuracies, and the extrapolation of the one flawed case study to

  wider development, has been the erroneous portrayal of nature protection as a significant blocker to

  nuclear energy requiring a sledgehammer solution in the form of recommendations 11, 12 and 19.

  Acting on this flawed premise would have detrimental consequences for nature, climate and energy.

  This will especially be the case if the recommendations are applied beyond nuclear development to all

  infrastructure, as was suggested in December. Nature in England is in decline, and the Office for

  Environmental Protection has this month warned that the Government ‘remains largely off track to meet

  its environmental targets and obligations, including legally binding biodiversity targets set under the

  Environment Act’. Recommendations 11, 12 and 19 would allow more damage to be inflicted to

  protected sites and landscapes, putting Environment Act targets decisively out of reach. Such a collapse

  in nature recovery would impact net zero efforts, reducing the number of healthy natural habitats

  needed to sequester large amounts of carbon. All three recommendations would require legislation to

  put them into effect, resulting in a controversial new planning bill that will take up considerable

  parliamentary time and Government capacity. This would be at the expense of other, better-founded

  reforms which will more effectively hasten the delivery of energy infrastructure.

  Such a blow to nature protection, net zero and clean energy delivery is not yet Government policy. It

  can still be avoided, if you decide not to progress the three flawed recommendations in the Nuclear

  Regulatory Review. We urge you to follow the evidence, reject the three recommendations and prevent

  unnecessary and hugely damaging environmental regression.

  Your sincerely,

  Craig Bennett, Chief Executive, The Wildlife Trusts

  Hilary McGrady, Director General, The National Trust

  Beccy Speight, Chief Executive, RSPB

  Darren Moorcroft, Chief Executive, The Woodland Trust

  Roger Mortlock, Chief Executive, CPRE

  Dr Rose O’Neill, Chief Executive, Campaign for National Parks

  Kyle Lischak, Head of UK, ClientEarth

  Richard Benwell, Chief Executive, Wildlife & Countryside Link

  Letter also signed by:

  Chris Hinchliff MP

  Toby Perkins MP

  Pippa Heylings MP

  Clive Efford MP

  Cat Eccles MP

  Helen Maguire MP

  Ian Sollom MP

  Ellie Chowns MP

  Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP

  Neil Duncan-Jordan MP

  Julia Buckley MP

  Ian Byrne MP

  Wera Hobhouse MP

  Dr Peter Prinsley MP

  John McDonnell MP

  Kate Osborne MP

  Terry Jermy MP

  Cat Smith MP

  Olivia Blake MP

  Jenny Riddell Carpenter MP

  Adrian Ramsay MP

  Jon Trickett MP

  Barry Gardiner MP

  Mary Glindon MP

  Rebecca Long-Bailey MP

  Kim Johnson MP

  Imran Hussain MP

  Simon Opher MP

  Zarah Sultana MP

  Andrew George MP

  Brian Leishman MP

  Iqbal Mohamed MP

  Carla Denyer MP

  Siân Berry MP

  Abtisam Mohamed MP

  Tom Morrison MP

  Nadia Whittome MP

  Grahame Morris MP

  Rachael Maskell MP

  Alex Sobel MP

  Jeremy Corbyn MP

  Clive Lewis MP

  John Milne MP

  Manuela Perteghella MP

  Alex Easton MP

  John Whitby MP

  Richard Burgon MP

  Andy McDonald MP

  Martin Rhodes MP

  Ian Lavery MP

  Mary Kelly Foy MP

  Richard Quigley MP

  Steve Witherden MP

  Irene Campbell MP

  Steve Darling MP

  Vikki Slade MP

  Richard Foord MP

  Lord Randall of Uxbridge

  Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

  Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

  Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

  Lord Thurlow

  Lord Bradshaw

  Professor Lord Krebs Kt FRS FMedSci ML

  Baroness Manzoor MA CBE

  Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville MBE

  Baroness Lister of Burtersett

  Lord Teverson

  Lord Taylor of Goss Moor

  CC:

  Rt Hon Emma Reynolds MP, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

  Chris Stark, Head of UK’s Mission for Clean Power

  Emily Shukburgh, Chief Scientific advisor at DESNZ

  Anjali Goswami, Chief Scientific advisor at Defra

  Ruth Davies, Foreign Secretary’s Nature Envoy

  Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England

  Alan Lovell, Chair of Environment Agency