Labour is pledging to scrap the Conservatives’ plan to ban new gas boilers from 2035.
The pledge has come from shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband who has told the Daily Telegraph that “no one should be forced to rip out their boiler under Labour.”
Instead - assuming Labour wins next week’s General Election - there will be financial incentives to help people install heat pumps.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said last year that “most people wouldn’t have to switch until they were replacing their boiler anyway and then not until 2035.”
Miliband tells the Telegraph: “We haven’t stuck with the government’s 2035 target when you can’t replace your old boiler. I know that we’ve got to show that heat pumps are affordable and work for people.”
He says heat pumps - which run on electricity - have become the most viable alternative to boilers and he would seek ways of encouraging a surge of installations if Labour entered government.
Miliband continues: “I think one good thing the government did, among a number of bad things, was to increase the heat pump grant to £7,500.”
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme, initiated by Sunak last year, provides eligible households with grants of up to £7,500 to fit heat pumps.
The Telegraph says Labour may take this further by extending it to millions of additional homes.
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I had intended to buy a brand new one in 2034 and keep it boxed in my garage 👍🏻 Won’t have to now.
My concern if the Tory policy had been enforced would be getting a gas engineer to agree to fit it. But I had the same plan for our oil boiler as we can do it ourselves legally.
Catherine wave a wedge of cash under there nose and they would fit it
Surprisingly helpful move by Labour, I’m dumbfounded!
I wouldn't believe a word from anyone in flip flops party.
The electrical infrastructure is not there to cope with the increased electricity demand this will cause. Likewise with electric cars. The 200 car parking spaces in the apartment block where I have a flat in Manchester has no car charging points. On enquiring if there were any plans to install these points, the management company advised that this had been investigated and were told it would be years before the infrastructure would be in place. This in an area of approx 1 sq kilometer, with a concentration of high rise apartment blocks with thousands of parking spaces and more being built. Pure madness.
Same is true of heat pump installers - there are simply not enough to do the sort of numbers required.
For many houses installing a heat pump will require substantial additionally work - maybe under floor heating, new pipework, new rads, new water tank. This work is better carried out as part of a major refurb & people should not be forced into this against their will.
Let's face it these politicians know that The National Grid has come ridiculously close to falling over at peak demand, and there is no time or money to get it all upgraded to cope with Electric Cars, Electric Heating and population expansion. Something has to give, and you'll see more of these Green Heracles fall by the wayside over time.
I suspect most of the Net Zero nonsense will be dropped and/or pushed back over time as people can not afford it, vast numbers of properties can not accommodate it and there isnt the energy infrastructure nor engineer base to facilitate its installation anyway.
Its all pie in the sky.
Wow. First good words I've heard from labour. Sensible. To be fair, it was a pretty shameless demand from the government to ask people to take away the option of replacing a 2k boiler for a 10k heat pump. These hopeless governments haven't even cleaned up the electricity supply. Both labour and the conservatives should have transisted to nuclear by now, but we're no where near that so a substantial portion of our electricity is powered by gas. The senseless government want the public to shoulder the cost for a heat pump despite the electricity supply not being clean. Makes no sense. First clean up the electricity and find some cheaper alternatives that are realistic, rather than a 10k heat pump. After that, we can talk about net zero. In the meantime, if we use gas boilers for the next few decades, that keeps costs down for people and makes no difference to the environment or the difference is so tiny (way less than 1%) it's not worth the upheavel, hassle and discussion. Leave the mentally less capable to just blab and make themselves feel better that they're saving the world. In reality, they're not making a scrap of difference.
Reform uk 🇬🇧👍🏼
Jäeger - The Lib Dems default position is Three Year Leases to replace Section 21 so this is where my vote will go.
Well eff me! I thought Miliband would come down hard on landlords, although they could get us via the back door with the new version of EPCs, where it will be impossible to get a C with a gas boiler.
Martin - I agree getting the EPC with a C will be difficult and Landlords won’t be receiving any funding for heat pumps.
You can increase the incentives to £20k, I still won't get a heat pump. If boilers are now never to be banned, I will keep mine going until there is a proper alternative that can be easily and affordably retrofitted inside and actually produces some heat.
Many houses simply can not be fitted with heat pumps - due to lack of space and/or the age of the building. One of our heating contractors said that houses need to have NO draughts for a heat pump to be effective. Victorian houses, much of the housing stock can be draughty and where conservation areas exist are often not allowed to install more efficient windows. Again, many houses are converted into flats and written into the lease that windows can not be changed without freeholder permission. There needs to be an alternative to heat pump. Southern Europe use electric heaters - they don't tend to have GCH but we need to ensure that we are producing enough renewable electricity as a country to enable a move from GCH to Electric.
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