The head of the UK’s leading nuclear industry body has urged the government to pursue small modular reactors with “pace and urgency”, amid reports of a funding delay with ministers unable to agree over the cost of the country’s energy ambitions.

Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the London-based Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), told the free business newspaper City A.M. that the UK needed to develop a pipeline of projects to ramp up nuclear power in line with the government’s energy security projects.

He said: “Proceeding with pace and urgency will not only make power more reliably and predictably priced, but it will also mean that UK technology will create long-term, high-quality jobs and export opportunities from which the country will benefit.”