The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee is inviting contributions to its new inquiry into priorities for nuclear research and technologies. In 2011 the Committee investigated whether the UK's research and development capabilities were sufficient to meet the country's nuclear energy needs in the future, ensuring a safe and secure supply of nuclear energy up to 2050.

The UK government has highlighted the role of nuclear power among its responses to a report by the Energy and Climate Change Committee. The parliamentary committee published its Third Report of Session 2016–17, The energy revolution and future challenges for UK energy and climate change policy, last October.

As the UK government moves towards the formal process to exit the EU, Jonathan Leech and Rupert Cowen consider the implications of Brexit for the nation's membership of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).

Horizon Nuclear Power - the UK subsidiary of Japan's Hitachi - and NuGeneration - the UK joint venture between Japan's Toshiba and France's Engie - have joined government officials, trade associations, and wider stakeholders during a trade mission to Tokyo this week.

The Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG) has announced the successful completion of a program for EDF Energy to study the effects of irradiation creep on graphite. Over a period of four years, four consecutive irradiation stages were performed on loaded graphite specimens in the High Flux Reactor in Petten, the Netherlands.

British parliamentarians have asked the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to clarify some of the financial aspects of the government's agreement with EDF and its partner China General Nuclear to build the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant.

The British government has asked nuclear regulators to begin a Generic Design Assessment of the UK HPR1000 reactor. This is the Hualong One design that General Nuclear Services - a subsidiary of EDF and China General Nuclear - proposes to use at a prospective new nuclear power plant in Bradwell.

Rolls-Royce has named the companies it is working with to bring a small modular reactor (SMR) to market in the UK. Amec Foster Wheeler, Nuvia and Arup, together with the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, are working with Rolls-Royce to develop the latest technology reactors, a spokesman for the British engineering firm told World Nuclear News today. "Other names will emerge in due course," he added.

The shareholders of Chinese coal miner Wintime Energy have approved its proposed investment in Hinkley Point C - EDF and China General Nuclear's project to build two European Pressurised Water reactors in Somerset, England. Wintime Energy, known as Wing Tai Energy in Chinese, announced its plan to invest up to three billion yuan ($440 million) in HPC through a wholly owned subsidiary of New Energy, Huayuan New Energy, on 13 December.

Japan and the UK will expand their existing collaboration in civil nuclear activities - including decommissioning, research and development, and nuclear new build - through a memorandum of cooperation signed yesterday in Tokyo.

Radioactive sludge has been transferred out of the world's oldest nuclear fuel pond for the first time, the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Sellafield Ltd announced yesterday. The project is being delivered ten years ahead of schedule and for half the expected cost, they said in a joint statement.

The UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has announced its total planned expenditure for 2017-2018 will remain almost the same as last year at GBP3.24 billion ($4.1 billion). The government will fund GBP2.36 billion of this, while GBP0.88 billion will come from income from commercial operations.