After again being pressed on the government's U-turn on winter fuel payments, Miliband is asked by Justin Webb on the Today programme what is different from previous announcements on Sizewell C.

(As a reminder, regulators approved Sizewell C during the previous government.)

Miliband says the difference is "that we're funding it - we're putting forward the money to make it happen".

He says this is the biggest investment in nuclear in half a century.

"We are doing this because we want long-term energy security," he adds.

The energy secretary is now speaking to our colleagues on BBC Radio 4's Today programme - you can watch live at the top of the page.

We'll have all the key lines here.

BBC Radio Suffolk's breakfast show with Wayne Bavin is live from the neighbouring Suffolk town of Leiston this morning.

Alice Cunningham
Reporting from Suffolk

Campaign group, Together Against Sizewell C, says it is "outraged" by the funding announcement.

Chris Wilson from the group says initial works on the power plant have already harmed the local environment.

“Sizewell C’s preparatory works have caused the loss of thousands of trees and miles of hedging as well as covering hundreds of acres with concrete and tarmac, much in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths National Landscape, external," he says.

"Together with the hundreds of millions of fish that will be killed annually in its cooling water system during its 60 years of operation, in our eyes, the Sizewell C project is state-sponsored ecocide."

Ben Parker
Reporting from Suffolk

Image source, Martin Giles/BBC

Despite today's announcement of fresh government investment, work on Sizewell C started some time ago, which includes:

• Clearing work started on the main site, just north of Sizewell B
• land being dug up for a new link road off the A12 (the main coastal road between Ipswich and Great Yarmouth)
• a new by around the villages of Stratford St Andrew and Farnham, which are on the A12
• two park-and-ride sites at Wickham Market and Darsham, also on the A12
• a freight management facility is being set up on the outskirts of Ipswich at Nacton

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

Sizewell was first formally identified, external as a potential site for a new nuclear power plant in 2009 by the then Labour government and its energy secretary - Ed Miliband.

Sixteen years, seven prime ministers, and 10 energy secretaries later, the new energy secretary - Ed Miliband - believes the £14bn extra investment in Sizewell C will end the "years of delay" over the project.

Government sources say they are determined to "go big" on nuclear power. While Miliband himself has long believed nuclear power is a key way to combat climate change, the government also views it as a reliable power source in a new age of energy insecurity.

Yet even if the government’s new commitment is the crucial final piece of the puzzle, it’s important to stress that Sizewell C is still likely to take at least a decade to complete.

A huge task that will take at least a decade to completepublished at 07:55 British Summer Time 10 June

07:55 BST 10 June

Simon Jack
Business editor

Building a nuclear power station is a colossal engineering and financial undertaking.

The government has committed to spending £14bn of public money over the next four years on a project it insists will:

• Create 10,000 direct jobs
• Thousands more in supply chains
• Eventually generate enough energy to power six million homes

But it will take at least a decade to complete and the plant of which it is a copy, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, will switch on in the early 2030s - over a decade late and costing billions more than originally planned.

The project has faced opposition at local and national level from those who believe Sizewell C will prove to be a costly mistake.

But the government insists that nuclear provides enormous amounts of low carbon, non-intermittent energy that will form a crucial part of the UK’s energy future.

There is also funding to develop smaller reactors and money for research into fusion. This is not the first government to enthusiastically usher in a new nuclear age and realising it will take ages yet.

Image source, PA Media

Sizewell is no stranger to nuclear energy.

In 1955, Sizewell A was first proposed as part of the government's post-war White Paper titled A Programme of Nuclear Power.

It wanted to build a number of nuclear power plants across the country and Sizewell A, a Magnox plant, was fully operational by 1966.

Sizewell A was eventually decommissioned and shut down in 2006, with work still ongoing to demolish the site.

Plans for Sizewell B, a pressurised water reactor, were first announced in 1969. After a lengthy planning process, it started generating electricity in 1995.

It is still in operation and produces 3.1% of the UK's energy needs. It is the UK's only pressurised water reactor.

BBC Breakfast's Jon Kay further presses Miliband on the timetable for Sizewell C.

Kay says he re as a young reporter when Hinkley C - a power plant in Somerset - was being talked about, and it still isn't completed.

He asks Miliband what lessons can be learned from that plant.

Miliband says they are "replicating Hinkley at Sizewell", and says lessons from the Somerset plant will help Sizewell built more easily.

The government is "confident it can be built quicker and cheaper" than Hinkley, he adds.

Vikki Irwin
BBC Suffolk political reporter

I do not think you can say definitely just yet, but I think this is a major step forward in of getting the money and attracting investors to this project.

The final investment decision will be in July and obviously it is a lot of money.

That is what some of the detractors say about this project - that it is way too expensive.

The energy secretary is now asked when the plant will actually begin providing energy.

As a reminder, the plant is expected to take at least a decade to build.

Miliband declines to give a precise timetable, but says the government is making "long-term decisions for the future of the country" - adding that's what they were elected to do "and that's what Sizewell C is about".

After being pressed on Labour's U-turn on winter fuel payments - which was confirmed yesterday - Miliband stresses that expanded investment in nuclear will deliver "clean energy".

Sizewell C "shows what we will see this week from the chancellor - a commitment to invest in the future," Miliband says.

As a reminder - Chancellor Rachel Reeves is delivering her Spending Review tomorrow

Our colleagues on BBC Breakfast are about to interview Energy Secretary Ed Miliband - watch live at the top of the page.

Trade unions have so far welcomed this morning's news.

The GMB union's regional secretary Warren Kenny says that "without new nuclear, there can be no net zero".

He also says Sizewell C will provide "thousands of good, skilled, unionised jobs" - a sentiment echoed by Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union.

"New nuclear is essential to achieving net zero, providing a baseload of clean and secure energy, as well as ing good, unionised jobs," he says.

The plant's construction is expected to create 10,000 jobs, according to the Treasury. Thousands more are expected to be created in firms supplying the plant.

Once operational, Sizewell C is expected to employ 900 people.

As we reported earlier, the cost of building Sizewell C had originally been estimated at £20bn - and builders EDF have rejected claims earlier this year that the true cost could double to £40bn.

Alison Downes, of the Stop Sizewell C pressure group, said ministers had not "come clean" about the full cost of the project.

"There still appears to be no final investment decision for Sizewell C, but £14.2 billion in taxpayers' funding, a decision we condemn and firmly believe the government will come to regret, " she says.

"Where is the benefit for voters in ploughing more money into Sizewell C that could be spent on other priorities, and when the project will add to consumer bills and is guaranteed to be late and overspent just like Hinkley C?

"Ministers have still not come clean about Sizewell C's cost and, given negotiations with private investors are incomplete, they have signed away all leverage and will be forced to offer generous deals that undermine value for money.

"Starmer and Reeves have just signed up to HS2 mark 2."

Image source, Alison Downes

Image source, Sizewell C

French energy company EDF wants to build a new two-reactor nuclear power station that could generate 3.2 gigawatts of electricity.

It is estimated it could power the equivalent of six million homes and operate for 60 years.

It would sit immediately to the north of Sizewell B, which began generating electricity in 1995.

Sizewell A opened in 1967 but it stopped generating power in December 2006 and the lengthy decommissioning process is ongoing.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband says the £14.2bn investment is necessary "to deliver a golden age of clean energy abundance".

He says that the plant is "he only way to protect family finances, take back control of our energy, and tackle the climate crisis".

In comments to the Guardian newspaper, Miliband adds that it will get the country "off the fossil fuel rollercoaster".

As a reminder, Miliband will speak live to the BBC at 07:30 and 08:10 - you'll be able to watch live on this page.

Image source, EPA

Various different funding announcements have been made over the years by different governments.

A spokesperson for the Department of Energy Security confirmed that with today's announcement, a total of £17.8bn of taxpayers' money had been put towards the project.

This included some funding from a subsidy scheme called Devex.

The project is still looking for private investors before building work can get under way.

Visitors to the area, and to the RSPB's Minsmere nature reserve will have already seen that some preparatory work has taken place to the north of the existing Sizewell site.

Sizewell C was originally expected to cost about £20bn in total.

It is being built by EDF (Électricité de ), the state-owned French company.

Earlier this year industry sources estimated a doubling of the £20bn figure at Sizewell - something EDF rejected.

EDF is also building a new plant at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, which it did accept would cost more than £40bn - compared to a 2022 estimate of £26bn.

Image source, PA Media

The government has committed £14.2bn of investment to build Sizewell C on the Suffolk coast, close to Leiston, and right next to the existing Sizewell A and Sizewell B nuclear power plants.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said it was a "landmark decision" while Energy Secretary Ed Miliband added the move was the government's "clean energy mission in action".

A final decision on the funding model will be taken by the government later in the summer.