Sizewell C will deliver homegrown power to 6 million homes for at least 60 years, and save the energy system roughly £2bn a year — yet a new Public Accounts Committee report published on Budget morning has, in the view of one senior Labour MP, judged the project against the wrong yardstick.

Charlotte Nichols, the MP for Warrington North and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nuclear energy, has pushed back hard against the PAC's findings on the finances underpinning Sizewell C. Her argument is simple at its core. The committee compared the deal to a counterfactual that was never actually available — one that would have scared away investors and produced yet more delays.

The real choice, she writes, "was never about this deal or a perfect alternative. It was between this deal or no power station at all."

What does the PAC report actually miss?

Nichols' case rests on what she calls reality — the market conditions Britain actually faces, not an idealised negotiating position. The country remains exposed to global gas prices, which have skyrocketed since the war in Ukraine. Families have seen their monthly energy bills rise by 58 per cent since that conflict began, and the Iran conflict is now pushing them higher still.

"We are at the whim of events miles away, with no ability to control them," she writes. "That is a bad deal for the British people."

She credits the Labour government with ending what she describes as years of "dither and delay" — making decisions, as she frames it, that will outlive the next election cycle.

What does Sizewell C cost, and what does it give back?

The plant's funding model carries a visible price tag. During construction, it will add around £1 a month to household bills. But that model — the regulated asset base (RAB) approach, where consumers pay levies during the build to reduce financing costs — actually lowers the ultimate cost of electricity by cutting the cost of financing.

Set against the £2bn a year in forecast system savings and six decades of output, Nichols argues the arithmetic favours nuclear over volatile gas.

The project is already delivering, she says, citing:

• Over 1,000 UK suppliers winning £5bn worth of contracts
• 77 per cent of the steel used being British
• 1,500 apprenticeships helping tackle the NEETs crisis (young people not in education, employment or training)
• £4bn of regional economic value — a figure highlighted in the PAC's own report

Why does the design head start matter?

Unlike most megaprojects, Sizewell C begins with a template. Some 85 per cent of its design is an exact replica of Hinkley Point C, meaning engineers can copy the lessons, avoid the mistakes, and deliver faster. Nichols calls this the luxury of "looking at Hinkley Point C's homework."

How does this fit the government's wider energy plan?

Last week, the Chancellor set "a new course on energy to get UK energy costs down in line with Europe". The package includes a £100 Household Energy Payment, an extended VAT cut on electricity and the end of gas standing charges — welcome relief this winter, Nichols concedes, but short-term relief. Sizewell C is the long-term partner: clean, homegrown power that keeps bills down for decades, not months.

Looking further out, she sees a pipeline: Sizewell C, small modular reactors, and a further large-scale site, backed by the Fingleton reforms. Together, she argues, Britain could build more new nuclear capacity than in the last 50 years combined — an opportunity to reindustrialise the sector that the country "cannot afford to throw away".

Does scrutiny still have a place?

Nichols doesn't dismiss the committee outright. Scrutiny matters, she writes, and the PAC is right to ask hard questions of Britain's biggest infrastructure project. But for decades, she argues, Britain was afraid of making decisions on nuclear power — and families paid the price through their bills.

She closes with a historical echo. In 1942, John Maynard Keynes broadcast against the "vile doctrine" that every project must justify itself in "pounds, shillings and pence" — even as the war crippled public finances. Sizewell C, in her telling, is what thinking big looks like.

"It will still be keeping the lights on — and bills down — when today's apprentices are drawing their pensions," she writes. "Now that is a good deal."

Or, as Keynes put it: "Once done, it is there. Nothing can take it from us."