Reform UK has pledged to scrap government grants that help homeowners install heat pumps, as part of a wider package of cuts to net zero spending the party claims would save £13 billion a year. The party’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said a Reform government would abolish the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which currently provides financial assistance to households switching from gas boilers to heat pumps.
The party claims that the scheme primarily benefits affluent homeowners rather than ordinary working families, arguing that the savings should be used to fund reductions in taxation and lower household energy costs through cutting green levies.
Last year saw 31,000 households access funding for heat pumps or similar low-carbon heating systems, but official statistics reveal that 75% of households that have already received the heat pump grant had an annual income of over £100,000 while more than half (52%) resided in properties with four or more bedrooms.
A similar announcement has been made by Reform UK Scotland leader Malcolm Offord who says he will end Scotland’s heat pump and net zero subsidy schemes, which currently see households receive interest-free loans and grants of up to £9000.
Energy analysts, however, have warned that such a move would leave British households more exposed to volatile global gas prices. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit points out that with North Sea gas reserves declining, a switch to electric heat pumps powered by domestic renewables was the only credible route to reducing dependence on imported gas.
“After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and now with conflict in the Middle East, time and time again we’ve seen what the UK’s over-reliance on gas for power and heating has done for households and businesses up and down the country,” says ECIU head of anaylsis Simon Cran-McGreehin. “Adding to the more than 125,000 heat pumps installed in the UK last year can have significantly more impact on how much foreign gas we have to import than more drilling in the North Sea.”
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has also cautioned against slowing the transition away from fossil fuels. In a new report issued today, the CCC found that adoption of heat pumps, electric vehicles and renewable energy would dramatically soften the blow of any future price shock. It says that households in a largely decarbonised energy system would face energy bill increases of just 4% during a major price shock, compared with a rise of 59% under continued fossil fuel dependence.
CCC chair Nigel Topping says: “In light of current world events, it’s more important than ever for the UK to move away from being reliant on volatile foreign fossil fuels, to clean, domestic, less wasteful energy.”
Commenting on Reform’s plans to scrap support for heat pumps, Greenpeace UK climate campaigner Paul Morozzo says: “Reform’s solution to our energy problems is to leave us even more exposed to the gas markets that are clobbering businesses and households with higher bills.
“Renewables and heat pumps are tried-and-tested technologies that can get our homes off gas and protect us from the consequences of Trump’s illegal war, yet Reform is hellbent on sabotaging them while plotting to bring back fracking. Trump and Reform’s billionaire donors could do well out of this, but households will be stuck with higher costs. The additional UK gas bill for the war in Ukraine was £90bn – and it sounds like Reform are more than happy for us to pay it all over again.”
