UK engineering giant Rolls-Royce, US nuclear power group Westinghouse, the trade union Prospect and several MPs have written an open letter to prime minister Rishi Sunak calling for the urgent launch of Great British Nuclear (GBN) and warning that without it the nation’s reactor plans are at risk.

The new body was promised by former prime minister Boris Johnson last year when, in the months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he set a goal of 24 GW of nuclear power capacity by 2050.

The letter notes that a recent independent review set up to assess the UK’s decarbonisation plans concluded that the UK needs to “double down” on achieving its nuclear baseload requirement by fast-tracking a pipeline of “no-regrets” plans including new nuclear technologies and small modular reactors if it is to meet its net zero carbon emission targets.