ISAR Global Parliamentary Intelligence Brief: Small Modular Reactors — Commitment, Evasion, and the Governance Gap in British Nuclear Policy

Executive Summary

A comprehensive analysis of 279 parliamentary questions on the subject of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), spanning from the earliest ministerial engagement with the technology under the Department of Energy and Climate Change through to the current administration’s Great British Energy – Nuclear programme, reveals a policy landscape characterised by sustained rhetorical ambition and persistent structural evasion on the questions that matter most to investors, industry, and the public. Across more than a decade of parliamentary scrutiny, successive governments have deployed remarkably consistent language about nuclear’s importance to the energy mix, the commercial potential of SMR technology, and the transformative employment benefits of domestic deployment — while consistently declining to answer specific questions about costs, timelines, manufacturing commitments, and financial risk.

The current administration has made the most concrete commitments yet recorded in the parliamentary record: the selection of Rolls-Royce SMR as preferred bidder for the Great British Energy – Nuclear programme, the designation of Wylfa on Anglesey as the initial site, and the articulation of a 70 per cent British-built supply chain ambition. These represent a genuine step-change from the years of competition management and feasibility assessment that characterised the previous decade. Yet the parliamentary record simultaneously reveals that contract signature remains subject to final government approvals, that water abstraction requirements for SMR cooling remain unresolved, that no cost estimates have been placed on the parliamentary record, and that the specific manufacturing commitments underpinning the 70 per cent target have been withheld on grounds of commercial sensitivity.

The overarching finding of this analysis is that British SMR policy has, across successive administrations, been governed by a consistent and deliberate asymmetry: maximum public commitment to the destination, minimum public accountability for the route. The parliamentary record documents not a failure of ambition but a failure of transparency — one that leaves Parliament, industry, and the public unable to assess whether the government’s nuclear programme represents sound industrial strategy or optimistic projection.

Volume and Pattern Analysis

The 279 questions retrieved represent a substantial and sustained body of parliamentary scrutiny, distributed across four distinct political and institutional periods: the coalition and early Conservative governments operating through the Department of Energy and Climate Change; the Conservative administrations operating through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; the later Conservative administration operating through the newly created Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; and the current Labour administration continuing through the same department. This departmental lineage is itself analytically significant: the concentration of SMR scrutiny within a single departmental line — whatever its name at any given moment — indicates that Parliament has consistently treated this as primarily an energy security and industrial policy matter rather than a science, defence, or trade question.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero dominates the dataset, accounting for the overwhelming majority of questions across the two most recent batches. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy accounts for the bulk of the historical record. Smaller but notable clusters of questions were directed to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology — reflecting growing parliamentary interest in the intersection of SMR deployment and artificial intelligence data centre infrastructure — and to the Wales Office, reflecting the political sensitivity of the Wylfa siting decision in Anglesey. The Treasury’s limited but non-trivial presence in the dataset signals that questions of public financing and subsidy have reached the level of parliamentary concern, even if ministers have declined to answer them substantively.

The partisan distribution of questions is revealing. Conservative members have been the most prolific questioners across the dataset as a whole, a pattern consistent with opposition scrutiny of a programme they initiated and which the current government has substantially inherited and rebranded. Labour members feature prominently in the most recent batch, suggesting a degree of supportive questioning designed to allow ministers to articulate the government’s programme on the record — a common parliamentary practice that nonetheless produces useful intelligence about the government’s preferred framing. The Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party all feature as consistent questioners, each with distinct concerns: the SNP focused on Scottish dimensions and technology selection; Plaid Cymru concentrated on Welsh siting and employment; the Liberal Democrats pressing on costs and timelines; and the Greens raising environmental and waste management concerns. The presence of Reform UK in the dataset, albeit marginally, indicates that SMR policy is beginning to attract attention from the populist right.

On the ministerial side, Michael Shanks has answered more questions on this subject than any other minister in the dataset, reflecting his position as the primary Commons minister for energy in the current administration. Lord Vallance of Balham has been the principal Lords spokesman on the SMR programme, with Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Wilson of Sedgefield also featuring. From the previous administration, Andrew Bowie and Lord Callanan were the dominant answering ministers, with a wider cast of ministers from BEIS and DECC accounting for the historical record. The concentration of answers in relatively few ministerial hands, particularly in the current administration, suggests a deliberate effort to maintain message discipline on a politically sensitive programme.

Ministerial Response Quality

The quality of ministerial responses across the 279-question dataset is, by any rigorous standard, poor in proportion to the significance of the questions asked. The parliamentary record documents a systematic pattern of deflection, boilerplate repetition, and procedural evasion that has persisted across administrations and ministers with remarkable consistency. This is not a partisan observation: the same analytical verdict applies to Conservative and Labour ministers alike, suggesting that the evasion is structural — rooted in the nature of the programme and the commercial and political sensitivities surrounding it — rather than a product of any particular government’s approach to parliamentary accountability.

The most pervasive form of evasion is the invocation of the live procurement process as a reason to withhold information. Across multiple batches of questions, ministers declined to provide cost estimates, manufacturing commitments, timeline projections, and comparative assessments on the grounds that the procurement was ongoing and disclosure would prejudice commercial negotiations. This is a legitimate procedural position in narrow circumstances, but its repeated application to questions of fundamental public interest — including the projected out-turn cost of the entire SMR programme, the specific manufacturing commitments made by Rolls-Royce, and the locations where key components will be manufactured — suggests that commercial sensitivity has been used as a catch-all shield against parliamentary accountability.

Boilerplate repetition is extensive and well-documented in the dataset. The phrase confirming Rolls-Royce SMR as preferred bidder, subject to final government approvals and contract signature, was used on at least fourteen occasions by three different ministers. The commitment to supporting approximately 3,000 jobs at peak construction appeared at least eight times across multiple ministers. The 70 per cent British-built ambition was repeated at least six times. The phrase “delivering a new golden age of nuclear” appeared five times across three ministers. These repetitions are not inherently problematic — consistent messaging on a major programme is expected — but they become analytically significant when they are deployed in place of substantive answers to specific questions. The parliamentary record shows instances where ministers responded to detailed technical or financial questions with these formulaic phrases, providing no additional information beyond what had already been placed on the record many times previously.

A particularly notable pattern concerns questions about cost and financial risk. Lord Hunt of Kings Heath faced a cluster of questions in the Lords about the projected out-turn cost of SMR projects, whether cost estimates would include a quantified risk register, whether optimism bias would be accounted for, and what the predicted dates for end of design period and commercial electricity generation would be. On each of these questions, the parliamentary record shows the minister providing only a vague assurance that Great British Energy – Nuclear follows usual government approvals processes, without confirming whether any of the specific financial disciplines asked about would be applied. This is a significant gap in the parliamentary record on a programme that will require substantial public investment.

The use of the quarterly ministerial meetings publication as a deflection mechanism is also documented in the dataset. On at least two occasions, ministers responded to questions about specific discussions — including discussions with the Office for Nuclear Regulation and with a company that subsequently withdrew from the UK market — by directing questioners to the standard GOV.UK publication of ministerial meetings, providing no substantive information about the content or outcome of those discussions. This is a procedurally defensible but analytically evasive response that tells Parliament nothing about the substance of government engagement on matters of policy significance.

Key Commitments and Timelines

The parliamentary record documents a clear evolution in the specificity of government commitments on SMR policy, from the early aspirational statements of the coalition period through to the concrete — if still conditional — programme commitments of the current administration. This evolution is analytically significant: it represents genuine policy progress, even as important questions remain unanswered.

The earliest commitments in the dataset date from the mid-2010s, when the Department of Energy and Climate Change confirmed that no true SMRs had yet reached demonstration or deployment, and committed up to £250 million to a competition to identify the best value SMR design for the UK. These early commitments were accompanied by a techno-economic assessment process that was itself subject to repeated delays and evasions about publication timelines. The parliamentary record from this period is notable for the frequency with which ministers stated that plans would be shared with the House “in due course” — a phrase that recurs across multiple ministers and questions without ever being accompanied by a specific date.

The subsequent Conservative administrations added the £385 million Advanced Nuclear Fund, of which £210 million was awarded to Rolls-Royce SMR Limited to support design development. This commitment was placed on the parliamentary record by multiple ministers and represents the first substantial financial commitment to a specific SMR developer. Ministers from this period also committed to the ambition of up to 24 gigawatts of civil nuclear capacity by 2050, representing approximately 25 per cent of projected 2050 electricity demand — a figure that has remained consistent across administrations and continues to be cited in current ministerial answers.

The current administration’s most significant commitment is the selection of Rolls-Royce SMR as preferred bidder for the Great British Energy – Nuclear programme and the designation of Wylfa as the initial site. Lord Vallance of Balham confirmed on the parliamentary record that contract signature was targeted for the year in question, and that initial site activity at Wylfa would begin thereafter. The employment commitment — approximately 3,000 on-site jobs at peak construction, with thousands more across the supply chain — has been repeated consistently. The 70 per cent British-built supply chain ambition has been stated by both the Commons and Lords ministers.

However, the conditionality attached to these commitments is significant and should not be overlooked. The preferred bidder status remains explicitly subject to final government approvals and contract signature. No cost figures have been placed on the parliamentary record. No specific operational date for the first SMR has been committed to. The government’s own projection, placed on the record by Michael Shanks, reveals that nuclear capacity is expected to drop from approximately 6 gigawatts currently to 3 to 4 gigawatts by 2030 as the existing fleet retires — a projection that sits in uncomfortable tension with the rhetoric of a new golden age of nuclear. The parliamentary record also confirms, through an answer from Emma Hardy at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, that cooling water abstraction requirements for SMRs remain under consideration by the industry, raising unresolved questions about site suitability that have not been addressed in DESNZ answers.

One commitment from the previous administration is worth noting for its historical significance: ministers confirmed an intention to take one nuclear project to Final Investment Decision within the then-current Parliament and two projects to FID in the following Parliament, including SMRs. The parliamentary record does not show this commitment having been met on the stated terms, and the current administration has not explicitly addressed this inherited timeline on the record.

Rhetoric Versus Reality

The central analytical finding of this intelligence brief is that the gap between SMR rhetoric and SMR reality in the British parliamentary record is wide, persistent, and — critically — consistent across administrations. This is not a finding about bad faith. It is a finding about the structural conditions under which nuclear policy is made and communicated in the United Kingdom: a technology with long lead times, high capital costs, significant commercial sensitivities, and deep political symbolism that makes it simultaneously attractive to announce and difficult to deliver.

The rhetoric is well-established and remarkably stable. Nuclear will play a vital role in the energy mix. SMRs offer faster deployment, lower capital costs, and greater flexibility than large-scale nuclear. The programme will deliver thousands of skilled jobs and anchor a domestic supply chain. Britain will be at the heart of global SMR development. A new golden age of nuclear is within reach. These phrases have appeared, in various formulations, across every administration represented in the dataset, from the coalition government’s early feasibility assessments to the current administration’s preferred bidder announcement. Their longevity is itself a form of evidence: they have survived because they are politically useful, not because they have been validated by delivery.

The reality, as documented in the parliamentary record, is more complex. The government’s own projection shows nuclear capacity falling significantly by 2030. No SMR has yet been built in the United Kingdom. No cost estimate for the programme has been placed on the parliamentary record. The specific manufacturing commitments underpinning the 70 per cent British-built ambition — including which companies will manufacture which components and where — have been withheld. Water abstraction requirements for SMR cooling remain unresolved. A company that was engaged with the UK market subsequently withdrew, and the government declined to publish a lessons-learned review. Questions about the comparative technical suitability of Wylfa for SMR versus gigawatt-scale nuclear have not been answered substantively. The financial disciplines that would normally apply to a major public investment programme — quantified risk registers, optimism bias adjustments, specific out-turn cost estimates — have not been confirmed as applying to this programme.

The Newcleo episode is particularly instructive. The parliamentary record shows that a company engaged with the UK nuclear market decided not to pursue investment in UK nuclear reactors. Questions about what ministerial discussions preceded this decision were deflected to the standard quarterly meetings publication. A request for a lessons-learned review was refused, with the decision characterised as purely commercial. This response pattern — deflect, minimise, decline to learn publicly — is precisely the opposite of the transparent, accountable governance that a programme of this scale and public cost requires.

The question of subsidies is similarly revealing. A direct parliamentary question about whether the government plans to subsidise the building of SMRs was met with an answer that avoided directly confirming or denying subsidy, citing the live procurement process and the need for value for the British taxpayer. This is a question of fundamental public interest — the British taxpayer is the ultimate guarantor of this programme — and the parliamentary record shows it has not been answered.

The data centre dimension of SMR policy represents an emerging area where rhetoric is running ahead of any parliamentary accountability. Michael Shanks confirmed on the record that DESNZ and DSIT officials are working together on the potential for SMRs to power data centres, and that SMRs have potential as a dedicated energy source for data centres given their potential to provide a near-constant supply of low-carbon electricity. This is a significant policy signal — connecting the nuclear programme to the artificial intelligence infrastructure agenda — but it has not been accompanied by any parliamentary commitment on timelines, costs, or governance arrangements for this application.

Strategic Intelligence Conclusions

• 1. The preferred bidder announcement represents the most concrete commitment in a decade of parliamentary engagement with SMR policy, but its conditionality — subject to final government approvals and contract signature — means it remains a statement of intent rather than an irreversible commitment, and senior decision-makers should calibrate their planning accordingly.
• 2. The government’s own parliamentary record projects a significant fall in UK nuclear capacity to 3–4 gigawatts by 2030, creating a near-term energy security gap that SMRs, with their long development timelines, cannot plausibly fill, and which the rhetoric of a new golden age of nuclear systematically obscures.
• 3. The 70 per cent British-built supply chain ambition is a political commitment without a verifiable contractual foundation in the parliamentary record: the specific manufacturing commitments made by Rolls-Royce have been withheld on grounds of commercial sensitivity, leaving Parliament and industry unable to assess whether this target is achievable or enforceable.
• 4. The consistent refusal to place cost estimates, risk registers, or optimism bias adjustments on the parliamentary record represents a structural accountability deficit that, if unaddressed, will expose the programme to the same cost overrun and delay dynamics that have characterised previous major UK nuclear projects.
• 5. The emerging policy linkage between SMR deployment and artificial intelligence data centre infrastructure — confirmed on the parliamentary record by the current administration — is developing without any corresponding parliamentary accountability framework, creating a governance gap that will require urgent attention as commercial pressures intensify.
• 6. The decade-long pattern of evasion on SMR timelines, costs, and manufacturing specifics is not a product of any single administration’s approach but a structural feature of how nuclear policy is communicated in the United Kingdom, and organisations engaging with this programme should treat all parliamentary commitments as subject to significant implementation risk until contractual and financial foundations are publicly confirmed.

Dataset Note

This brief is based on the analysis of 279 parliamentary questions retrieved using the search term “Small Modular Reactor”, with no date filter applied, yielding a dataset spanning from the earliest ministerial engagement with SMR technology under the Department of Energy and Climate Change to questions answered as recently as February 2026, with a retrieval date of 28 February 2026. The dataset covers questions tabled in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and encompasses answers from ministers across multiple departments and administrations. Analysts should note that keyword-based retrieval methodology will capture questions in which the precise term “Small Modular Reactor” appears but may not capture related questions using alternative terminology — including “advanced modular reactor”, “nuclear new build”, “Great British Nuclear”, or “Rolls-Royce SMR” — where those terms appear without the primary search term; the dataset should therefore be understood as comprehensive within its search parameters rather than exhaustive of all parliamentary activity relevant to nuclear energy policy.