A new generation of nuclear power stations will be encouraged to supply unlimited amounts of electricity to the national grid, The Times has learnt.

The Cabinet will give the go-ahead for the new building programme today and John Hutton, the Business Secretary, will announce the decision on Thursday.

He will pave the way for the nuclear industry to play a much bigger part in meeting Britain’s energy needs by making plain that there will be no limit on the amount of electricity it can supply to the grid.

At present nuclear power accounts for 20 per cent of energy supplies.

The price that the Government will make the nuclear power operators pay to supply unlimited electricity is that they will have to meet the costs of decommissioning power stations and of managing and disposing of waste. Legislation will be promised by Mr Hutton to safeguard the taxpayer from such costs, although critics will maintain that it will merely result in higher electricity bills.

Mr Hutton will not give a figure for the number of stations to be built or their location. That will depend on private sector interest, ministers say. But the most likely sites are those where ageing reactors need replacing.Dungeness in Kent, Bradwell in Essex, Sizewell in Suffolk and Hinkley Point in Somerset are among the most likely locations.

The move comes amid growing anger at the big price rises being imposed by private power companies. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, has asked the energy regulator Ofgem to investigate whether they can be justified.

Gordon Brown and other ministers have already suggested backing new nuclear power on environmental and energy security grounds. Mr Brown told The Observer that a decision on future energy supplies was “a fundamental precondition of preparing Britain for the new world”.

He said: “When North Sea oil runs down, both oil and gas, people will want to know whether we have made sure that we’ve got the balance right between external dependence on energy and our ability to generate our own energy within our own country, and that’s about renewables as well as about other things.”

Mr Brown’s spokesman confirmed yesterday that if companies got the go-ahead for nuclear stations they would eventually have to pay for decommissioning them.

He added: “We have always been clear that the full share of the costs of the long-term management and disposal of waste should fall on the operators.”

Roger Higman, the policy director of Friends of the Earth, said: “Britain can meet its energy needs, maintain energy security and tackle climate change through a comprehensive programme of renewables, energy efficiency and cleaner carbon technology.

“We should invest in a safe, clean and sustainable future, rather than trying to breathe fresh life into the discredited dinosaur of nuclear power.

“The Government’s public consultation was a sham. Nuclear power is not the answer to tackling climate change. It is expensive and leaves a legacy of deadly nuclear waste that remains dangerous for tens of thousands of years.

“UK taxpayers are already committed to a bill of up to £70 billion to clean up the nuclear mess we have already created.

“Adding to that cost would be financial madness and divert resources that would be better spent on energy efficiency and renewables.”

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