Lukewarm reception for government heating plan

Ministers unveiled plans for £5,000 ($6,900) grants to allow people to install home heat pumps and other low-carbon boiler replacements as part of a wider heat and buildings strategy. Labour condemned the plans for not having sufficient substance.

Details for the scheme include £450m towards grants to replace boilers, with a pledge that the fund will mean heat pumps should cost no more than gas boilers to install or run. The wider strategy also contains a commitment to funding totalling £3.9bn to decarbonise buildings and how they are heated, with a 2035 target for all new heating systems in UK homes to be energy-efficient.

The business and energy secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said recent gas price rises “have highlighted the need to double down on our efforts to reduce Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels and move away from gas boilers over the coming decade”.

However, some environmental groups said more urgent action was needed. Jan Rosenow, European programme director for the Regulatory Assistance Project, a clean-energy NGO, said there were “many positive elements” in the strategy. But he added: “Providing grants for installing heat pumps is essential as they are more expensive than gas boilers, but the level of funding is too low.

“Under the plans, only 30,000 homes would be able to benefit from the government grant, just enough to support current installation levels. Given that the target is to install 600,000 heat pumps per year, this is clearly not enough.”