Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Decommissioning Sellafield

Status: Closed Opened: 31 Oct 2024 Closed: 21 Aug 2025 9 recommendations 23 conclusions 1 report

The Sellafield nuclear site closed in 2003, having operated since 1950. Work began to decommission the site in 2005. Highly hazardous materials are stored there from across the UK’s nuclear industry, and it holds a legacy of contaminated buildings, untreated waste and ageing facilities. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), the public body in charge of …

Reports

1 report

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
28th Report - Decommissioning Sellafield	HC 363	4 Jun 2025	32	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

2 items

13 Conclusion 28th Report - Decommissioning Sellafield Not Addressed

Major project delays and costs at Sellafield significantly escalated since 2018 due to poor planning.

When it last took evidence on Sellafield, the previous Committee was told that major project delivery was improving.32 The NDA told it that “cost forecasting is improving” while the Department said that “for the first time now, the estimates of those costs have begun to stabilise”.33 Even then though, the …

Government response. The government response does not directly address the committee's finding of increased costs and delays for major projects, instead citing a 2024 NAO report that noted positive progress in more recent projects and praised the Programme and Project Partners model.

HM Treasury

28 Conclusion 28th Report - Decommissioning Sellafield

Geological Disposal Facility project experiences significant delays and slow progress.

The NDA also needs to construct a ‘Geological Disposal Facility’ (‘GDF’) to store waste permanently – including that currently at Sellafield. This project is still at a very early stage: it needs to drill boreholes before it can even start developing a ‘Preliminary Design’ and also needs to conduct a …

HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session

Date	Witnesses
20 Mar 2025	Clive Maxwell · Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, David Peattie · Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Euan Hutton · Sellafield Ltd, Kate Bowyer · Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Lee McDonough · Department for Energy Security and Net Zero	View ↗

Correspondence

7 letters

Date	Direction	Title
8 Jan 2026	To cttee	Letter from the Group Chief Executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority …
8 Jan 2026	To cttee	Letter from the Interim Permanent Secretary at the Department for Energy Securi…
15 Dec 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of Sellafield Ltd relating to recommend…
24 Nov 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Chair to the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Energy S…
4 Sep 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Chief Executive Officer at Sellafield Limited relating to the 2…
24 Apr 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Group Chief Executive Officer at the Nuclear Decommissioning Au…
7 Apr 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Decommissioning Au…