Financing for the 3.2GW Sizewell C nuclear plant has been criticised by the UK National Audit Office, which says the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model and £700M of direct government investment place more risk on taxpayers and bill-payers than Contracts for Difference used on other low‑carbon projects. The NAO estimates consumer benefits will not exceed costs until after 2060, well beyond the station’s planned early‑2030s commissioning. For civil and nuclear contractors, the findings signal prolonged political and regulatory scrutiny of cost overruns, schedule risk and allowable returns.

The UK government is introducing the Small Business Protections Bill (Commercial Payments Bill) to parliament, imposing a statutory 60‑day cap on payment terms for large firms and mandatory interest on late payments to smaller suppliers. The bill grants the Small Business Commissioner new powers to investigate, adjudicate and levy fines worth tens of millions of pounds on persistent late payers. For construction, a planned ban on cash retentions could significantly alter contract structures, cashflow management, and security arrangements for defects and incomplete works.

Greenland’s long-running dispute over Energy Transition Minerals’ Kvanefjeld rare earth and uranium-linked deposit shows that execution risk in permitting and regulatory stability can derail critical-minerals projects as effectively as metallurgy or ore grade. Alina Karpunina of GEM Mining Consulting argues that investors now price in years of legal conflict as a project cost, demanding higher premiums or walking away when uranium thresholds under Greenland’s 2021 law and shifting political signals make approvals look fragile. While projects like Malmbjerg molybdenum, Amitsoq graphite and Tanbreez progress under the 2025–2029 Mineral Resources Strategy and the 2023 EU-Greenland raw-materials partnership, she warns that unclear, revisable rules can render “strategic” deposits effectively unfinanceable.