Irrespective of this week’s vote though, the government’s in-tray is piling up with other pressing matters.
The most urgent item on the energy to-do list is the future of the new-build nuclear programme. Reports from Japan indicate Hitachi is preparing to halt work on its project to build a new nuclear plant in north Wales. The Japanese multinational’s announcement that it is assessing the “potential suspension” of the Horizon project will not have calmed jitters.
A Hitachi pullout from the Horizon project would be an even bigger blow for the UK’s nuclear programme than Toshiba’s exit from the Moorside scheme in November.
The government has gone out of its way to accommodate Hitachi. The Treasury relaxed its long-standing embargo on underwriting energy projects by agreeing to take a stake in the Horizon scheme.
But even with this offer on the table, Hitachi appears to have struggled to find backers.
The government is working up plans to extend the Regulated Asset Base model, under which investors would get paid even before the project is built and generating revenues, to the nuclear sector as a further carrot for potential investors.
With the UK’s nuclear options rapidly dwindling, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy must ensure this is one area of policy that doesn’t get sidetracked by Brexit.