GOING NUCLEAR: What will become of the nuclear regulatory review?

The report of the Nuclear Regulatory Review Taskforce, chaired by John Fingleton, was published on 24 November 2025. The government immediately accepted the principle of all 47 of its recommendations and in the words of the Prime Minister’s Strategic Steer to the Nuclear Sector, published on 26 November, “committed to complete implementation within two years, subject to legislative timelines on elements requiring primary legislation”. In its Advanced Nuclear Framework (see GOING NUCLEAR: Advancing Advanced Technologies) the government reiterated its commitment to presenting a full implementation plan within three months, “taking account of our international obligations, national security considerations, and planning, environmental and court processes.” The time for that is of course now nearly up.

The initial euphoria on the part of the nuclear industry and nuclear interests at the outcome of the Review has however developed into controversy over some aspects of the report. This is notably centred around three of the recommendations: 11, 12 and 19.

Recommendation 11 proposes some quite radical amendments to the Habitats Regulations 2017:

a) Remove the need to prove a negative when drawing a conclusion on impacts, so that the wording of the regulation refers to the need for scientific evidence and excludes merely hypothetical or speculative risks.

b) Define ‘compensatory measures’ to expressly exclude the need for like-for-like compensation and instead accept that overall enhancement and measures to support the coherence of protected sites is sufficient.

c) Establish that de minimis effects do not constitute an adverse effect on integrity, including where they have a de minimis contribution to in-combination effects with other projects.

d) Legislate to remove the requirement for separate HRA assessments to be completed for each regulator at different stages, unless there has been a material change to a project. This could be achieved by “deeming” that the first assessment meets the tests of any subsequent approval unless there is a fundamental change in circumstances.

e) Modify the 2017 Habitats Regulations, to allow mitigation measures to be considered at Stage 1 of the Habitats Regulations assessment process.

It asserts that “These recommendations cumulatively could make a difference in terms of bringing down cost with little adverse effect on habitats.”

Recommendation 12 goes further by proposing an alternative pathway to comply with the Habitats Regulations by allowing nuclear developers to pay a substantial fixed contribution to Natural England at the outset, the level of the payment being fixed generically across the nuclear estate to avoid it becoming a separate source of litigation. The payments would go to a new nature fund administered by Natural England which would be free to distribute the money to organisations engaged in nature conservation and restoration such as the ones mentioned above, and to spend it on scientific research and expertise to inform its own activities.

Recommendation 19 is to amend the levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 to remove or constrain the duty for local authorities to ‘seek and further’ national parks and landscapes, by restoring the previous ‘have regard to’ language. It describes the duty as having ambiguous and unprecedented language, which has the scope to generate litigation and delay projects. It says that since nuclear projects tend to be sited in coastal or rural locations, to ensure distance from large population centres and provide easy access to water for cooling, many of these areas coincide with, or border, protected landscapes. It sees “a risk of this ambiguous wording complicating, or delaying, decisions on nuclear going forward.”

Criticisms were not long in coming forward. In an early shot across the bows, the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (the leading professional membership body representing and supporting ecologists and environmental managers in the UK) warned that the Review “fundamentally misunderstands ecology, environmental processes, and the purpose and application of environmental regulation”, pointing to the lack of any environmental expertise among the Taskforce. The CIEEM did not pull its punches:

“Initial analysis by a CIEEM Fellow finds that the Review adopts an overwhelmingly negative stance toward regulation of all kinds, particularly environmental safeguards.

Rather than an impartial or evidence-based assessment, the report frequently ridicules environmental assessment processes and draws on selective or extreme examples, many unrelated to the nuclear sector.

Significantly, the Review fails to acknowledge any of the positive outcomes achieved by the Habitats Regulations or Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations, outcomes that even the most critical ministerial statements have previously recognised.

The result is a document that appears partial, unbalanced and overly aligned with existing political narratives. Its tone and structure suggest a report intended to justify pre-determined conclusions rather than genuinely assess the evidence.”

In January 2026 the Wildlife Trusts published a full analysis, Why the Nuclear Regulatory Review is flawed – and how it could turn the nature crisis into a catastrophe. This pointed out what it saw as major flaws and inaccuracies behind Recommendations 11, 12 and 19, and defending a robust approach for environmental protection for such projects. It pointed out that:

“The Review was produced without enough environmental expertise – and this shows. It contains a number of errors when it comes to environmental evidence, which has led to a misdiagnosis of the problem and to damaging recommendations about environmental regulations. The Review relies heavily on the case study of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. It is quick to use the case study to blame nature without examining the actions and decisions of the developer. A large amount of confusing and misleading information has been issued to the media and in the Review itself to further this narrative”.

The Review however has been vehemently defended by Sam Dumitriu of the development and infrastructure lobby group Britain Remade, for example in a blog of 26 January 2026, In defence of the Fingleton Review, which gets into detailed argument on the truth behind Fingleton’s examples.

Concerns have continued to be voiced in the press (for example in The Times, which in February 2026 reported that despite requests DESNZ could not give examples of cases where AONBs had held up nuclear development) and it is understood by many MPs, who have urged Ed Milliband to reject the review’s recommendations.

Therefore, it is not predictable what course the government’s response to the review will ultimately take. Accepting recommendations “in principle” leaves a certain amount of wriggle room, as do the words repeated in the Advanced Nuclear Framework, “taking account of our international obligations, national security considerations, and planning, environmental and court processes”. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that far from being principled, the government response is driven by political expediency to a large degree. The enthusiastic initial reception coincided with the 2025 Autumn Budget on 26 November, when the government and Chancellor were desperate to talk up forecasts for the UK’s economic and fiscal outlook and bullish proposals for regulatory reform to accelerate nuclear development were perfectly consistent with that narrative. By contrast, on February 11 2026, the FT published an article on the Chancellor’s plans for closer economic and security ties with the EU, described as “the biggest prize” and prompting the suggestion that she was expected “to dial back calls from an official report to rip up certain habitat and wildlife rules in order to speed up infrastructure projects”.

Stepping back from the minutiae of the heated debate over the accuracy or inaccuracy of the Review and the realpolitik of nuclear lobby vs environmentalists vs Treasury, a few comments can be made. Fingleton and his team were probably over ambitious and possibly naïve as to some of their recommendations, and their report may well have been over-influenced by certain nuclear interests. However, it would be wrong to throw out the baby with the bath-water and suggest rejection in its entirety. There are many good points which need to be taken forward, but giving a high priority to habitats and landscape protection reform simply is not necessary. There are many other things which are much more important barriers to nuclear development to be addressed. Even within those fields, there some aspects which can be implemented without legislative reform, in particular regulatory attitudes and mindset, which would if correctly approached yield much more tangible and rapid results. Part of the Review’s terms of reference talked about “quick wins”. Legislative changes to the habitats regime would certainly not be quick, and probably would not turn out to be “wins”. Attempts at reform under the Planning and Infrastructure Act show the difficulty of the exercise in legal and political terms. To propose changes involving regression in protection (which some of the Fingleton suggestions undoubtedly would) is likely to waste time and effort and lead to ultimate climb-down. Perhaps not for the first time, the government has put itself in a self-inflicted difficult position by making a hasty decision in wholesale welcome to the Review, rather than leaving some room to manoeuvre. It will no doubt be highly sensitive to potential accusations of another U-turn, but its imminent implementation plan will need to be carefully nuanced. It is to be hoped that the government has been taking good legal and other advice since November.