The manufacturing capability of the UK’s sole civil nuclear fuel manufacturing site at Springfields is vital to the country’s energy security and any loss of skills there would be “shocking” and jeopardise the government’s ambitious nuclear programme and its climate goals, MPs were told.

Trade unions have warned that a series of redundancies at the Westinghouse Springfields plant, near the northern English city of Preston, could leave a shortage of workers for any future nuclear programme and have a devastating impact on the UK nuclear fuel supply chain, the UK’s energy security and its indigenous nuclear fuel manufacturing capacity.