MINISTERS should “take over the reins” at a massive planned nuclear power station in Cumbria, unions said yesterday after tech giant Toshiba was plunged into chaos by a looming multibillion-pound loss.

Toshiba chairman Shigenori Shiga resigned after the company said it was on track for losses of £2.7 billion for the year to March.

The Japanese firm has a 60 per cent stake in the NuGen partnership building the Moorside station near Sellafield. In a statement yesterday it said it would “consider participating in the project without taking on any risk from carrying out actual construction work.”

But the GMB union, which represents energy workers, said the Toshiba turmoil “must not be allowed to jeopardise the future of Moorside,” and that there was the potential for 20,000 jobs in building, maintaining and operating the plant.

“It is time for government to show leadership and take over the reins at Moorside,” the union’s national secretary Justin Bowden said.

“The fiasco with Toshiba shows exactly why relying on foreign companies for our energy needs is just plain stupid.”

This evening nuclear unions will hold a hustings event for next week’s by-election in Copeland, which is home to many workers in the industry.

Unite leadership frontrunner Len McCluskey said: “Copeland’s communities and the trade unions representing Sellafield’s workers, need assurances from candidates that they will hold the government to its duty to bring new power stations on stream.

“I also call on Theresa May to give assurances that the wheels are not falling off her government’s industrial strategy and that it will not tread water in relation to the future of Moorside.”

NuGen said Toshiba “remains committed” to the project.

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