Nigel Farage’s ridiculous war on heat pumps will leave Britain in the cold

Reform UK has announced it would scrap the government’s heat pump grant.

First up, some house cleaning. Heat pumps work. I’ve had one heating my modest 1980s semi for three years. Contrary to popular nonsense, they run just fine in the cold – hence why there are over three million of them in operation across Scandinavia.

My combined package of a heat pump, battery, and solar panels is saving me about £1,000 a year on my energy bill. Not too shabby, especially with a rate of return on capital invested currently at about 8 per cent. The catch, obviously, is that many people will struggle to find the up-front funds to invest in the kit in the first place.

On the face of it, I have some sympathy with Reform UK’s argument that the heat pump subsidy primarily goes to high-income households. Consecutive governments have failed to draw up green policies that are overtly fair. The same criticism could be levied against the various EV grants we’ve seen and past solar panel incentives.

Reform’s argument falls apart when they go on to say that they want to redirect the heat pump grant funding into tax cuts. Tax cuts, after all, also benefit the rich, and they don’t stop the climate crisis.

Instead, what we really want is Britain’s struggling households to benefit from precisely the same savings I’m getting. No more gas standing charge. All electricity is accessed during ultra-cheap ‘off-peak’ periods. And a heat pump running at around four times the energy efficiency of a gas boiler, all with near-zero carbon emissions.

To get there, we do need a shift in policy direction. But we definitely don’t want to abandon the heat pump industry just as it’s kicking off. We desperately need skilled heat pump engineers – good, well-paid jobs – so we shouldn’t pull the rug from under them. We made this mistake with solar panels; poorly timed subsidy removal led to thousands of job losses and set the industry back several years. Despite those errors, solar panels and EVs no longer require subsidies to be cost-effective.

What we do need to kick off is a massive programme of street-by-street home upgrades. Heat pumps, yes, but also insulation, solar panels, batteries, and double/triple glazing. This is a programme to cut our dependency on fossil fuels, mostly coming from unreliable trading partners and multinational corporations with no interest in the welfare of ordinary Brits.

By starting this upgrade programme with council housing, we can ensure the policy isn’t just a bung to the rich. Rented accommodation should be next in line, with working to ensure landlords get their homes up to scratch, helping to bring down bills for renters. Direct grants and interest-free loans should be the carrot, and regulation the stick, all in service of lower bills and a lower-stress life.

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Alex Chapman is a Senior Economist at the New Economics Foundation.

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