Britain's nuclear future at risk, experts warn Their remarks were backed last night by MPs who warned that the current situation is "bound to cause concerns for future developers" and could lead to an exodus of nuclear experts to countries like China. Tim Yeo, head of the Parliamentary Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, said: "I entirely share this concern. These negotiations are dragging on and there doesn't seem to be much urgency on the government's side to complete them. Clearly there are a significant number of jobs [at stake]. We need to try and rekindle this industry if we are not going to lose the remaining skills we have in the nuclear energy sector. The letter comes amid is growing concern for the future of Britain's nuclear industry after ministers last month pushed back their timetable for developing 16 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power at five new plants from 2025 to 2030. The first of these is a planned £14bn, 3.2GW twin-reactor plant at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, but the government is in deadlock with French company EDF Energy over subsidies for the project. A key sticking point is the so-called "strike price," the rate for electricity produced by the plant which will be fixed for 30 years and subsidised by levies on household energy bills. Ministers are wary of agreeing to an unfavourable deal which could force consumers to pay billions of pounds in subsidies to France, but the nuclear industry fears that dithering over the first of the planned new plants sends out the wrong message to investors. Tony Lodge, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, told the Telegraph that failure to secure a deal with EDF could have a catastrophic effect on the government's energy plans. An escalating tax on carbon emissions was introduced earlier this month to encourage nuclear development, he explained. If new nuclear plants are not built, Britain will be stuck with the levy on fossil fuels and gas, but few alternative sources of energy. "The whole of the government's energy strategy and electricity market reform collapses if we do not get a deal on new nuclear," he said. If EDF walks away, then the government have failed and so has the whole of British energy policy. Last week Lord Hutton, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, warned in the Sunday Telegraph that failure to reach a deal with EDF Energy "threatens not only the first nuclear power station for a generation, but potentially all those that will come in its wake." Writing today the group of 18 experts, which includes senior professors from nuclear research centres at Oxford and Cambridge universities, warns: "A speedy resolution to these negotiations that is acceptable to both Government and industry is crucial to provide the commercial underpinning for the project to proceed, to give greater confidence to investors in nuclear and other energy infrastructure projects, and to allow a robust, evidence-based, transparent economic case for future nuclear energy to be made." Mr Yeo said that failure to reach a quick agreement would mean "any prospect of generating any new nuclear power before the end of the 2020s would go," adding: "I think it is a very serious danger if the negotiations are not concluded soon." There is a good opportunity here for Britain which is why it is incumbent on the government to move forward and not to stall as it appears to be. "I think they are using these people to force the government to make a decision on the strike price," he said. I would say "a plague a'both their houses" would be a fair assessment." A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: "We are in ongoing discussions with EDF over the Hinkley Point project. Progress is being made. We are focused on securing a positive outcome, and we want to move things along as swiftly as possible. But we need to be sure that any deal is right for the UK consumer and makes commercial sense. As Ministers have always said, we will not do a deal at any price.