In 1956, the Queen opened the world's first commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall, giving Britain a head start in what is now a large and increasingly important global industry.

It is a measure of the failure of government energy policy since then that yesterday's decision to sell Britain's nuclear power stations to a company majority-owned by the French State was treated as a great success.

You don't have to be a Colonel Blimp to wonder whether it is entirely wise to entrust such a vital national interest to a foreign government. It is not hard to imagine circumstances in which the interests of EDF's owner and those of its British customers might be in conflict. And I wonder whose interests would prevail.

I bet John Hutton, the Business Secretary, does not think it is ideal, either, but the failure of his predecessors to sell nuclear as the environmentally acceptable solution to our looming power shortage has left him with little alternative.

Unless we get some new nuclear power stations built as soon as possible, the lights are going to go out (to be honest, they may go out anyway) and, sad to say, the best chance of getting the stations built in time is to get the French to do it.

The Government has persuaded EDF to sell some British Energy sites to the other European companies that have expressed interest in building new nuclear plants, so there is a good chance that there will be at least one other operator when the next generation of plants start functioning in 2017.

Yet there remain serious concerns about the deal's impact on competition.

Combining British Energy with its existing generation will give EDF up to 25 per cent of the market. And it will earmark much of British Energy's output for its own retail customers, reducing the amount of “free power” available to be bought by independent suppliers. They are very worried about the deal, as are some of the smaller generators.

Last week, the Government encouraged Lloyds TSB to rescue HBOS by promising to overrule any objections from the competition authorities. It cannot do the same for EDF, at least not publicly.

All the parties involved say that they are confident that the deal will not go to a full Phase-II anti-trust investigation by the European Commission.

Even if it does, they are confident that any remedies demanded would be acceptable to EDF. Presumably, ministers are hoping that, if worst comes to worst, the British and French governments could twist a few arms in Brussels.

The possibility of EDF pulling out some time next year is too awful for the Government to contemplate. It would surely finish off Gordon Brown, if he is still there. And it wouldn't be great for the rest of us.

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