Heat Pump Grants to Be Cut in Budget
Funding for heat pump grants is set to be cut by billions of pounds at the Budget in a fresh blow to Ed Miliband’s green agenda as the Government tries to lower bills amid sky-high energy costs. The Telegraph has more.
Ed Miliband, the Net Zero Secretary, is understood to have accepted that he must scale back the boiler upgrade scheme amid challenges to the public finances.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme offers up to £7,500 to help cover the cost of installing a heat pump to incentivise households to ditch polluting gas boilers.
But some Government insiders are said to believe some of the money goes to middle-class families who would install a heat pump regardless of the scheme.
It is the latest sign that the Government is willing to cut back Net Zero drives amid pressure from political opponents and voters’ concerns on the short-term financial impacts.
The Telegraph revealed last week the Treasury would also announce a new pay-per-mile tax on electric vehicles from 2028 in the Budget on November 26th.
Sir Keir Starmer has also faced criticism from environmental campaigners for indications that Britain will not pay into this year’s COP climate change fund for forests.
Claire Coutinho, the Conservatives’ Shadow Net Zero Secretary, called for the Government to go much further in its attempts to reduce energy bills.
Ms Coutinho said: “As we’ve been calling for, it’s time to end the bribes and bans to force people into heat pumps, which are costing taxpayers billions.
“Whether it’s for Artificial Intelligence or living standards, we should focus all our efforts on making electricity cheap and cutting people’s bills.”
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Mr Miliband are currently working on a set of changes to green levies before the Budget.
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister appear determined to lower household energy bills, as their party’s 2024 election pledge to reduce them by £300 remains unfulfilled.
Labour is also expected to remove VAT from electricity bills, a move Mr Miliband indicated was being considered in an interview last month.
Another is removing what is known as the energy company obligation (Eco), which adds about £60 to the combined cost of electricity and gas bills.
Worth reading in full.
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Hurrah ! Maybe next time Rachel From Accounts (or was it Complaints ?) will reduce the stupid bribe to zero. Excellent news, too, that those grossly polluting EVs will now start to pay some pay-per-mile tax. It will be amusing to see how ‘Mad Ed’ spins these changes.
The whole heat pump idea is crazy.
I’m not saying it can’t work in properly insulated new builds, but for the average person it means an investment of something like £15k for a heating system that doesn’t work properly.
So, in a nutshell: spend money you don’t have on something that doesn’t work.
By the way, we were visited by a heat pump salesman about 5 years ago, they were going round knocking on doors and I was curious about what spiel he would present me with, just for entertainment. I told the guy that I would only ever buy a system like that after every single house in our street had installed one with a 100% satisfaction rating and personal endorsement. Well, since then nobody in our street has installed a heat pump. So that’s the adaptation rate here in our small village.
Heat pumps run on electricity, gas boilers run on gas.
Irrespective of how effective a heat pump is, electricity is four times the cost per kWh than gas. It just cannot compete in terms of running cost even in a new build.
Green subsidies are always reverse Robin Hood taxes
An admission it’s all a racket – scrap the iniquitous tax on gas and oil boilers too. For most properties, no substitute for the real thing.
The Internet tells me there is no heat pump installed in 10 Downing Street
I’ve long argued the Palace of Westminster should be disconnected from the grid and rely on its own wind turbines, solar panels and batteries to power itself, heating water and premises by means of air source heatpumps. They should also remove all meat from their menus and live on locally produced plant- and insect-based foods. Only if they find it to be a success should they force it on the rest of us.
“some of the money goes to middle class families” 😅 a bit like “some of the EV grants are helping middle class families”
The public sector workers out in the suburbs no doubt.
“polluting gas boilers”. You mean the modern high efficiency combi boilers that produce hot water on demand and carbon dioxide (plant food and a requirement for all animal and plant life on the planet) and water vapour?
“But some Government insiders are said to believe some of the money goes to middle-class families who would install a heat pump regardless of the scheme.” Not if they had any sense!
These must be those non-working people who are paid more than £46,000 a year for er….working possibly or driving trains.
Message to The Telegraph – gas boilers are NOT polluting.
Won’t save much. They’re way behind with their Useless Heat Pump targets. No-one wants one.
This is always the problem when you give taxpayer funded incentives for technologies favoured by government. Richer people get heir solar panel, or heat pump etc paid for by poorer people via the subsidy. But ofcourse government do not care about that, they only care about getting as much of their ideologically motivated technologies into peoples houses.
Labour is also expected to remove VAT from electricity bills, a move Mr Miliband indicated was being considered in an interview last month.
Genius move – there’s the £300 cut as promised. Now to continue pushing up the price.
Slightly off topic but this morning’s news is important (please keep up guys!). Last weekend we were told that the OBR (Office for Bungling and Rubbish?), had to revise the previous Government’s productivity forecast down, creating another unforeseen black hole that was going to force the illegal landlord to break her manifesto promise. This week, numerous bad news stories for TTK and suddenly the OBR say receipts are better than expected, spending doing well, so no need to change income tax after all. Does nobody think that this is just total 🐂💩 to protect Starmer and Reeves and that the OBR is just a branch of the Labour party?
I wonder how scrapping VAT on household electricity bills will help the person occupying the post of chancellor to balance the books?
It won’t, the opposite in fact. Left hand, meet right hand…
Trump effect. They know the Manmade climate gig is in its death throes.
The only bloc still running towards the cliff edge of economic ruin is UK/Europe.