Complaint
The programme included an item in which the presenter interviewed the Â鶹ԼÅÄ’s Business Editor about the Government’s newly-announced British Energy Security Strategy. A listener challenged the accuracy of the Business Editor’s statement that, among the low-carbon alternatives, onshore wind power was “definitely the cheapest and the quickest to deployâ€, citing in particular the levelised cost of nuclear power generation. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ’s editorial standards of accuracy.
Outcome
In the ECU’s view, it was clear from the context that the interview was not concerned with a comparison between levelised costs of various forms of electricity generation, but was focused on forms of low-carbon generation which could be brought into production relatively quickly (it having been already pointed out that construction work had begun on only one of the six sites earmarked by the Government in 2010 for new nuclear power plants). In that context, the ECU judged the Business Editor’s statement to be duly accurate.
Not Upheld