Complaint
In a departure from its usual format, this edition of More or Less invited guests to choose “interesting numbers” from 2025 “which tell us something about our world that you may not already know”. One of the guests chose £38 billion which he described as the projected cost of the new Sizewell C nuclear power station. He explained the costs have been “revised and revised upwards” over time, and argued regulatory requirements, especially those designed to protect the natural environment, were a significant contributing factor. However, a listener complained figures cited by the presenter to accompany the piece were inaccurate and misleading. The ECU considered whether it met the BBC’s standards for accuracy set out in the Editorial Guidelines.
Outcome
To illustrate the guest’s point, the presenter cited this example:
The building of the Hinkley C Nuclear Power Station involved hundreds of millions of pounds being spent on measures to protect fish. These cost something like a quarter of a million pounds per fish saved.
The figures, challenged by the complainant, were based on data from a case study included in John Fingleton’s Nuclear Regulatory Review 2025. In the ECU’s view it was reasonable to assume listeners would have understood the guest’s central point that environmental regulations can add hundreds of millions of pounds to the costs of major infrastructure projects. It was also reasonable for the programme to refer to the case study in John Fingleton’s report. However, the programme did not make it clear the cost-per-fish figure only applied to certain endangered species and did not explain the cost was calculated over a 25-year timeframe. This lack of context altered the meaning of the “£250,000 per fish” figure. Listeners were likely to infer hundreds of millions of pounds will be spent to protect only a very small number of fish.
Upheld
Further action
The finding was reported to the management of BBC News and discussed with the relevant team. More or Less accepted it is a complex issue and will discuss it again in the next programme run.