Brief 4 - Message Delivery: Are we reliant on others to build Hinkley Point C nuclear power station?

One main factor that the government seems to be boasting about is the amount of work the new nuclear powerstation will generate. They argue that it will open up new jobs for an engineering work force, but does our country have a qualified source of engineers suitable? Engineers and Scientists have been undervalued over the past years and the majority of those graduating from university with a degree in hi-tech engineering are not from Britain.

“The problem is that we are fast approaching a point where 80 per cent of postgraduate engineering positions at British universities are taken by students from outside the UK.” – Sir James Dyson

This plays further into the idea that we are relying on other countries to be independent. The government have an ideal of producing nuclear energy ourselves and being fully self sufficient, however since they shot themselves in the foot by arguing they wont allow subsidies from tax payers they have made themselves reliant on other countries.

With the building of Hinkley Nuclear plant we are relying on EDF expertise and ownership and money from the Chinese as previous investor Centrica pulled out last year.

Sir James argued that the country does not invest enough in the engineers and designers of the future, It could be argued that the Hinkley point project reflects this and shows that we are heading for a “looming energy crisis”.

There is a looming feeling of irony with the fact that simultaneous with the government capping immigration the plans for Hinkley will soon go ahead. The government will need the skilled workers which we cannot as a country provide internally.