UK Government Confirms £14.2bn Investment to Deliver Sizewell C
Ten thousand jobs will be created , the UK Government said, including 1,500 apprenticeships. It added that the funding would also support thousands more jobs across the UK.
The company has already signed £330 million in contracts with local companies and will boost supply chains across the UK with 70% of contracts predicted to go to 3,500 British suppliers, supporting new jobs in construction, welding, and hospitality.
The equivalent of around six million homes will be powered with clean homegrown energy from Sizewell C.
The announcement comes as the UK Government is set to confirm one of Europe's first Small Modular Reactor programmes. Taken together with Sizewell C, this delivers the biggest nuclear building programme in a generation, it said.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said:
'We will not accept the status quo of failing to invest in the future and energy insecurity for our country.
'We need new nuclear to deliver a golden age of clean energy abundance, because that is the only way to protect family finances, take back control of our energy, and tackle the climate crisis.
'This is the Government's clean energy mission in action- investing in lower bills and good jobs for energy security.'
The UK opened the world's first commercial nuclear power station in the 1950s, but no new nuclear plant has opened in the UK since 1995, with all of the existing fleet except Sizewell B likely to be phased out by the early 2030s.
Great British Nuclear is expected to announce the outcome of its small modular reactor competition imminently, the first step towards the goal of driving down costs and unlocking private finance with a long-term ambition to bring forward one of the first SMR fleets in Europe.
Small modular reactors are expected to power millions of homes with clean energy and help fuel power-hungry industries like AI data centres.
The UK Government said it was also looking to provide a route for private sector-led advanced nuclear projects to be deployed in the UK, alongside investing £300 million in developing the world's first non-Russian supply of the advanced fuels needed to run them.
Companies will be able to work with the UK Government to continue their development with potential investment from the National Wealth Fund.
The UK Government is also making a record investment in R&D for fusion energy, investing over £2.5 billion over 5 years. This includes progressing the STEP programme (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production), the world-leading fusion plant in Nottinghamshire, creating thousands of new jobs and with the potential to unlock limitless clean power.
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At the school, the teacher tells me, the children's uniforms are funded by guests' donations. At the Bazaruto Centre for Scientific Studies, founded by Flohr, the Portuguese chief scientist Dr Mario Lebrato states that without Kisawa, Mozambique would lose its only permanent ocean observatory, which hosts international research and helps the national parks team to protect creatures such as dolphins, turtles and dugongs — all of which I spot on a snorkelling trip at the appropriately named Aquarium area off nearby Two Mile Reef. The next day, on the 56-mile road trip from Vilanculos to my second stop, at the Sussurro boutique hotel, my driver, Jamal, confirms the importance of tourism. His four adult children — a builder, a plumber and two doctors — were educated thanks to his job, he says. Without tourism, which contributed £164 million to the economy in 2024, their choices, like those of most of Mozambique's 34 million nationals (a staggering 45 per cent of whom are under 15), would have been more limited. His point is illustrated on the last 20 miles of our journey, north of Inhassoro, when we drive on a beach thronging with fishermen pulling in their nets, some heaving in their catch on ropes, others sorting sardine-sized fish into big blue tubs which are carried back to villages near Sussurro. Alongside the wide Bartholomew Dias lagoon, Sussurro is properly remote. It's owned by the Zimbabwean couple Adam Humphreys and Sarah Birkett. Humphreys' father had bought a stretch of coastal land more than 20 years ago. When Birkett first saw it, from the family's basic reed hut, she thought it was the most beautiful place she'd ever seen. 'I knew we could create a proper African beach resort together,' she told me. Neither had lived in Mozambique before, or worked as hoteliers. She had lived in London for 12 years, modelling for Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney then studying art direction at the London College of Fashion, and he had helped to run an estate in Tuscany. The first five years were 'super-hard', Birkett admits. They had a clapped-out Toyota truck, and had to drive 20 miles to get fresh water and a phone signal. But with the help of the community, slowly they built their dream: an eco-friendly boutique hotel with a soul. Nine years on, they've just opened their seventh cottage at Sussurro: a two-bedroom, shaggy-fringed family pool house. And their own beach house is now also home to their two toddlers and a pair of dachshunds. It all feels super-chilled and extremely romantic, which is why it's become so popular among honeymooners. Walls are punctured by wooden louvres that funnel the sea breeze and filter the sun. The simple whitewashed Afro-minimalist interiors have muslin-swathed beds, and there are big baths in the courtyards for moonlit soaks. Everything is local: the makuti-woven ceilings and soapstone-carved basins, the chairs carved with animal designs and the rows of giant fire-baked terracotta urns. In the evening, sisal cushions are placed by a bonfire for cocktails and simple delicious food served under the palms: inventive salads, fire-grilled fish or crab and peanut curry, and fruity ice creams, all made from ingredients grown by themselves or by the community. Activities include picnics on remote beaches; days out on sandbars watching fisherman in dugouts; sundowners on the hotel's shabby-chic wooden dhow, and after-dinner drinks under a night sky thick with stars. It's a space in which to chill out, and tune into nature. After this remote wilderness, driving back into Vilancoulos feels like a real jolt back into civilisation. This bustling little town, its streets thronging with vendors selling piles of fresh fruit and vegetables and bowls of silvery fish, has been the holiday home of the South Africans Mike and Sarah van Hone for 23 years. When, eight years ago, the plot alongside their own villa on a 14-home beach estate came up for sale, they snapped it up and built a white architectural villa they named Saudade. This February they launched it as a six-bedroom boutique hotel (you can also rent the whole thing). That Sarah has designed homes and gardens all her life is immediately clear. Saudade's a beauty: an Axel Vervoordt-inspired, wabi-sabi blend of clean monochrome lines and rough African accessories, polished concrete floors and scalloped wooden mirrors, all accessorised with characterful ceramic vases, rattan lampshades and ocean-themed embroidery. Two downstairs rooms open onto a grassy garden and circular pool; two upstairs into the airy open-plan living-dining area overlooking Vilanculos beach. Although the garden isn't huge, the couple have created courtyards and verandah in which to dine privately and trained their local chef Papi to create delicious three-course meals, from ceviche and Mediterranean-style salads at lunch to crispy deep-fried Asian-style prawns, then rare rump steak with dauphinois and gooey chocolate bombes at dinner. You can be as busy or lazy as you like. The couple have teamed up with operators they've known for decades who will take you out fishing for the day or horse riding along the beach, diving on Two Mile Reef or snorkelling off sandbars. Or you can go, as I did, for a tour in Mike's 1967 refurbished turquoise Land Rover of the charmingly ramshackle town, then out on a dhow, snorkelling among seahorses with a local environmental organisation devoted to protecting the endangered creatures. Like other Mozambiquans I meet on all three properties, Saudade's staff are a delight: smiley, helpful and determined to use their extraordinarily beautiful coastline to improve the welfare of their people. I've now been to their country ten times. If their roads improve, one day I might be able to drive there from Zimbabwe, as my parents did when I was a child, Bob Dylan songs about Mozambique blasting from the tape Grainger was a guest of Kisawa, Sussarro, Saudade and Mahlatini. Ten nights' all-inclusive (with six nights at Saudade and four nights at Sussurro) from £6,910pp, including flights and transfers ( Tucked into luxuriant undergrowth on steep dunes just north of Vilanculos, this simple nine-bedroom lodge overlooks the Bazaruto Archipelago's turquoise channels and islands. Accommodation comprises two cottages, six safari-style canvas-walled rooms and a new Luxury Iconic Suite, each spacious, wooden floored, thatched and simply furnished, with a private pool. The Italian owners, Elena and Fabio Ratti, are known for their all-inclusive fresh Mediterranean-style food, Italian wines and inventive cocktails. Additional activities can be arranged with longstanding local operators from fishing and whale-watching to market trips, scuba diving and cooking Full-board doubles from £446 ( A private self-catering villa, just four miles north of Vilanculos, this rustic thatch and wood house sits on a point, overlooking a quiet mile-long bay. Sleeping eight in four en suite bedrooms, it was built as a family holiday house 20 years ago and has been looked after by the same housekeeper ever since. This is a place to hang out in a hammock, lie by the pool, fire up the barbecue, watch fishing dhows —and perhaps go for a walk or swim. Although its interiors are the rustic end of shabby chic, it has two attentive staff who will help to organise activities or hire a A night's self-catering for eight from £342 ( A Greek-inspired hotel might seem odd in Mozambique. Until you look at the colours around it: white beaches and blue seas and skies. Set on the cliffs on nearby Kingfisher Bay, Santorini has four villas, with one to five bedrooms that cater to both families and honeymooners. In the five-bedroom main house, with crisp white fittings, rooms around a common pool with sea views can be booked individually. All-inclusive meals, wines and cocktails can be served on the beach, the rooftop, in a courtyard under the stars — or even the vegetable garden. The therapist uses natural Thalgo and CSpa products in the little All-inclusive doubles from £1,039 ( This little Fairtrade community-based hotel, built from stone and thatch by a cashew farmer and furnished with simple woods and cottons, has links with various projects, from groups cleaning the beach and schooling children to former fishermen saving seahorses. The 17 clean, airy rooms include 12 with a sea view and five quiet garden suites amid greenery above the beach. Ingredients are sourced locally, for dishes from cashew-nut curries and giant grilled prawns to crab ravioli. A small gym, spa and yoga classes are available — or there's a long white beach to walk on and warm Indian Ocean water to swim B&B doubles from £243 (
