 Our party stood at the general election on a manifesto promise to oppose plans to build a new generation of nuclear power plants because it is a far more expensive way of reducing carbon emissions than promoting energy conservation and renewable energy. Our party also rejects nuclear subsidies - there is no justification for paying extra to support nuclear, which is a mature technology, when we could use the money to invest in innovation to bring down the cost of new renewable technologies. We managed to win a commitment to this in the coalition agreement, which states that there will be no public subsidy for nuclear power and allows Liberal Democrats to maintain their opposition to nuclear power.  We were proud that our party democratically decided at our conference in September 2010 to "ensure that any changes to the carbon price do not result in windfall benefits to the operators of existing nuclear power stations". We are therefore dismayed that the finance bill will result in a windfall of ?50m per year from 2013 to 2030 to existing nuclear operators for doing nothing different - pushing up consumer electricity bills.  Support for a Conservative party-inspired policy on nuclear power must not become another tuition fee debacle for our party. We need to make a stand and ensure that the nuclear industry does not benefit from being an unintended beneficiary of tackling carbon emissions.  Cllr Louise Bloom, David Boyle, Gareth Epps and John Leech MP