Government pays £184m in taxpayers’ money to private energy firm

The government has paid a £184m subsidy to help the recently rescued British Energy, according to a report in The Guardian. A leaked document, marked “restricted: commercial and market sensitive”, reveals the government paid £184,812,087 to British Energy on 1 March for “spent fuel liabilities”. The newspaper says these liabilities are reprocessing contracts with the state-owned British Nuclear Fuels at Sellafield.

The reprocessing contracts would harm British Energy’s viability, so the government has agreed to pay for the storing of the waste until the contracts expire in 2086. The £184m payment, or thereabouts, will be paid every year to cover the costs of British Energy’s contracts with BNFL, which effectively means British Energy shareholders will benefit from profits created by the generation of electricity without having to pay for the disposal of the fuel.

BNFL’s accounts will list the payment as operating income from customers but it was not revealed as a direct payment from the taxpayer via British Energy in the annual accounts published last month.

The backlash has intensified because the money is routed directly to the Thermal Oxide Reproccessing works at Sellafield, which has been out of action since April because of a leak. Consequently, the money is being paid for a suspended service that may never be provided.

British Energy said it could not comment because its annual results were due to be published this week.