Govt Gives Into Heat Pump Lobby
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
I can only assume the Tories have a death wish!
Plans to impose targets for electric heat pump sales on gas boiler manufacturers could be confirmed as early as next week, after fierce debate within government and intense lobbying from industry to abandon the policy.
Sky News understands energy secretary Claire Coutinho had intended to ditch the policy, known as the Clean Heat Market Mechanism (CHMM), but will now proceed following objections from ministerial colleagues, who argued that it is crucial to decarbonising home heating and meeting wider net zero policy.
Manufacturers have warned the policy will increase the cost of boilers.
In a concession to the industry, fines for missing electric heat pump targets will be pushed back by 12 months to April 2025.
Ms Coutinho is also expected to refer several major gas boiler manufacturers to the Competition and Markets Authority for potentially colluding over price increases of up to £120 on gas boilers, imposed to cover potential fines that they described as a "boiler tax".
The long-awaited announcement comes after weeks of tension in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
Ms Coutinho’s intention to bow to gas industry pressure met opposition from ministers Lord Callanan, the minister for energy efficiency, and Graham Stuart, the minister for energy security and net zero, who were both reported to have considered resigning.
Net Zero extremists such as Callanan and Stuart should have been told they have no place in the party, if they are prepared to put their zealotry above the interests of the public at large.
The Tories already face electoral oblivion. Their one hope is to face down these green nutters, and stand up for the interest of the public.
It appears that they have thrown away their last chance.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Another nail in the coffin of the Conservative Party
This lot are on a one way trip to oblivion but probably the most likely replacement Labour will double down even more.
Labour will be just as ‘green’ as the Conservatives over the net zero enforcement. Two cheeks of the same backend . .
Good. The sooner we have the inevitable disaster, the sooner we can recover from it. We need another disastrous left-wing government to teach people that their policies don’t work.
Can a coffin be more nail that wood? The Tories are trying to prove it can.
Coutinho, another weak minister with no principles and no commonsense.
She looks like she’s trying to be the new Claire Perry. Equally useless and driven by a Green agenda. As I told my Tory MP, when I found out he was a member of the CEN: if I wanted a Green government I’d vote for the Greens. He couldn’t care less.
One just utterly despairs.
Vote: ‘None of the above’
Have done for years !!
But if governments thought voting made a difference, they wouldn’t allow it to happen.
What a mess. Our government needs to stop trying to pick winners and let the market rule. No point forcing Heat Pumps or any other product on consumers when the product is not commercially viable.
Until we or them slash the price of Electricity then heat pumps vs Gas heating makes no sense.
Not increasing the tax on Petrol in this weeks budget was plain dumb. Not reducing EV charge VAT rate to 5% was also dumb.
Stupid at most levels.
Wrong!
Not decreasing petrol VAT to 5% and abolishing fuel duties , to bring ICEs into line with EVs was wrong!!
Imagine if they do do that it would almost guarantee a hung parliament at the very least. We would have petrol & diesel well under £1 – would Labour dare change such a situation.
irony, parody, sarcasm what is it? After all, as John McEnroe used to say “you cannot be serious”.
By “dumb” you mean choosing not to needlessly hurt most of us whilst not rewarding the better off. Yes, fancy our elected representatives being so dumb as to not harm us.
Quite how you think making one thing cheaper and another thing more expensive via taxation is letting markets rule is beyond me.
The Conservatives should send someone out to Argentina to consult with and learn from their new President.. This country is not worth living in anymore.
The cost is completely irrelevant until there is adequate generating capacity for current electrical space heating demand let alone any increases the relevant Secretary of State and the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority are required under the Electricity Act 1989 to “secure that all reasonable demands for electricity are met” – so the lack of plans to build enough to meet our equivalent instantaneous natural gas & heating oil demand for an unusually cold winter e.g 1947 or 1963 – https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2018/gas-consumption-during-the-beast-from-the-east-how-the-local-gas-system-kept-us-warm is a little disconcerting
Increasing fuel duty will increase the cost of everything that travels by road so is in practice a regressive stealth tax as it will increase the cost of food, postage/ delivery costs & the trades (builders, plumbers, electricians etc.)
It will likely increase costs for public services particularly health and social care think carers going home to home leading councils to attempts way to increase their income e.g increased council tax and parking charges.
So you agree that new ICE vehicles should not be banned or manufactured costs used to distort the economics.
Also I would get rid of fuel duty entirely and do what New Zealand does instead of dying diesel fuel red if it not intended for road use just require road vehicles to buy a road usage permit per the 1000 KMs or miles traveled although I would vary the fee based on the weight of the vehicle.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/road-user-charges/ruc-for-electric-vehicles/
If we want to reduce our dependance and use of oil then switching cars to electricity is the low hanging fruit. We have a good number of EVs on the roads but still only a few % of the fleet. Increasing tax on petrol and lowering tax on electricity would be a smart way to nudge consumers to move to EVs. As a growing share of our oil is imported and fracking if off the table we need to reduce consumption purely for economic reasons let alone emissions.
The use of oil for transport use is quite fixed & the main low hanging fruit is households with multiple cars mainly used for 1 person commuting most of the time, a disproportionate number of EVs are in household with multiple cars in urban areas particularly Inner London with reasonable quality public transport. Just forcing 1 person commuters to use motorbikes, micro cars or public transport would save more oil and I would start by heavily restricting the number of hours people who want to live in LTNs are allowed to use their own cars or have delivery vehicles carry things which could reasonably be taken on public transport e.g. no supermarket deliveries.
My car is 15 years old all increasing the tax on petrol will do is reduce my disposable income with me probably cutting back on my spending in the hospitality sector as much of my driving e.g to/from work & the supermarket isn’t discretionary. People don’t go out to buy new cars as a primary reaction to higher fuel prices although they may factor it in when they buy their next car ( a good analogy would be housing have you ever heard of anyone decide to move house because of energy taxes) I won’t be buying an EV because I doubt 1 will last as long as my current car and I live on a Victorian street and don’t have off road parking but I may consider a plug in hybrid depending on the battery chemistry (i.e. not a unextinguishable fire hazard) and the cost of its replacement & other spare parts.
Exactly most EVs on the roads are fleet purchases by business or government or are leased particularly via salary sacrifices schemes. essentially tax breaks so good that it make the car leases practically free. There is no real market in EVs.
There is an easy fix for that expose hypocrisy (we are happy to import things produced in ways we wouldn’t allow in the UK) and tell people the truth, and if we want to maintain our current standard of living we need access to low cost reliable energy. Lets start by using our own oil & gas including fracking.
We also need to address the malthusianism of just stop oil types as many mean well but are misdirected by making it impossible to not know its not possible to feed 8 billion people without fertilisers made from fossil fuels or machines powered by diesel fuel. Especially as environmentalist have a history of wanting population control and that whole movement was a direct successor of the eugenics movement.
tangoev: ”If we want to reduce our dependance and use of oil then switching cars to electricity is the low hanging fruit.”
That may well reduce our consumption of oil but not that of gas. As all renewable power is always fully-allocated, any increase in demand to charge EVs will be met by gas.
Moving to EVs will increase our gas consumption and therefore our imports from neighbours or as LNG.
The UK currently has the second highest electricity price in Europe ( 33 nations ).
Price data — HEPI (energypriceindex.com)
This is scandalous.
“Our government needs to stop trying to pick winners and let the market rule.”
Except EVs; government must force EVs on consumers.
“No point forcing Heat Pumps or any other product on consumers when the product is not commercially viable.”
So it’s okay if it is commercially viable? Fascism is okay, they just need to make smarter choices for us?
“If we want to reduce our dependance and use of oil then switching cars to electricity is the low hanging fruit. We have a good number of EVs on the roads but still only a few % of the fleet. Increasing tax on petrol and lowering tax on electricity would be a smart way to nudge consumers to move to EVs.”
So, today, it’s okay for government to select winners. You changed your mind in a day.
The Tories already face electoral oblivion.
Their one hope is to face down these green nutters, and stand up for the interest of the public…………..
Standing up for the interests of the public……. Remind me when that last habbened…………
Unless & until members of the political class are seriously fucked up by the consequences of their actions & inactions, we can expect more of the same to be imposed upon us ad infinitem
In my lifetime, only the brief Thatcher interlude. She actually stood up fir consumers and tax payers, against the special interest groups, whether unions, civil servants or lazy, protected businesses. But then we had the Messianic Blair with hus idiot sidekick Brown who doubled spending, benefitting public sector workers and those on benefits before causing an almighty financial crisis. Cameron embraced the Green blob and cared more about his elite circle than consumers, May was an extraordinarily incompetent disaster, Johnson went fully Green and fully authoritarian and caused huge inflation. Sunak…well, as spineless and useless a PM as we’ve ever had.
Vote Reform to rid us of this insanity.
It’s hard to know who to vote for. My instincts say Reform, but if lots of people vote for them it could increase the chances of a Labour landslide which would be worse than another “Conservative” government. If the Tories loose loads of voters to Reform are they capable of understanding why and returning to “sensible” conservative values? If not there’s no point trying to “teach them a lesson”.
What tends to happen in situations where a third party consistently takes votes from one of the big two is that the party affected steals the policies of the new contender.
Most recent example is UKIP and the referendum, without the former the latter would never have happened.
The loss of sitting MPs means that next election more candidates for the Tories will have stolen ideas and policies from Reform. in theory at least.
Labour might be worse but we need a dose of left-wing failure to teach younger people what happens when you pursue fantasy policies. As this article demonstrates, the Tories are completely part of the problem, now, even as poll 18 – the lowest ever in my lifetime I suspect.
A “landslide” will mean insane infighting in the Labour Party to “use” the landslide. They will get less done! If Johnson had had a smaller majority, the zealot “wets” would not have been able to defenestrate him and then Truss so easily.
It’s not simply the Tory Party that appears to have a death wish. There are many fifth column Communists who have infiltrated our Parliament, Civil Service, regulators, quangos and institutions who are using the false CAGW theory that Western anthropogenic emissions of CO2 will destroy the planet as an excuse to sabotage the West’s economies by destroying its access to cheap abundant, reliable, secure hydrocarbon and nuclear energy.
Cretins led by morons!
The idiocy of FACT, that atmospheric CO2 was once 20%; 500x greater than it is now and life not only survived, it proliferated and thrived!
How could that be?
2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometres are the only photonic wavelengths that can absorb IR radiation in CO2 molecules, other wavelengths are unaffected!
CO2 molecules in the same trajectory, but at a greater distance are unaffected. Furthermore, the heating of the molecule is transient, a lower energy photon is ejected, regaining its previous energy status.
I am 68 yo, I have spent a lifetime, first of all believing, but not questioning the validity of any of these spurious claims.
I now question everything, before I accept it, as truth! The internet and social media are a fantastic and amazing, concept. BUT common sense, needs to differentiate dogma, propaganda, opinion, fact and reality?
Life did not exist when atmospheric CO2 was 500 times greater than now. Over the last 400 million years it is estimated that the maximum amount reached 5 times greater than now, a few times. Life certainly had no trouble in adapting to these levels. However, we do not really know how quickly the level changed.
Whatever, the die is cast. Two thirds of the world is full-on with using as much fossil fuel as possible as quickly as possible.
As one with some knowledge of spectroscopy it also involves the asymptotic absorption curve (not as obscure as it sounds but v important). Oh, and do the govt know that the refrigerant in heat pumps absorbs about 2000 times the energy of CO2, and it does leak out.
The main problem is that we are being run by Agenda 21 or Totalitarianism now. World Order is blackmailing whatever little we had left in the way of democracy. The truth no longer matters. Let us hope that Clintel gains traction quickly to bring back sanity to what is being thrust upon us (including heat pumps)
Clean Heat Market Mechanism
See, if you put ‘Market’ in the name, it becomes market based.
Michael Foots Labour Party manifesto was always considered to be the longest suicide note in political history, however, the last 14yrs of CONsocialist mismanagement has by far exceeded this – not a day goes by without more fuel added to the funeral pyre. Slowly but surely, Net Zero is being forced on the people of these nations – no discussion, no debate, just do as WE say, and regardless of cost as not one member of the unelected CCC is prepared to put either a number on the cost of “transition” in either monetary or employment terms, nor are they prepared to show a basic Cost/Benefit analysis to prove that increasing the cost of Energy, forcing BEV’s at twice the price of a ICE vehicle, dumping Low Efficiency Heat Pumps requiring back up electric showers that cost 8x the price of a Combi boiler – how all that expense actually benefits the m”man in the street”, you know, the poor sap who is going to spend his life in poverty while politicians live it up glowing in Green credentials and getting fat.
And too cap it all, Labour will do nothing because they are going to be worse than useless.
The Tories seem to be getting every single policy decision backwards and I’m too far gone with them to even argue the toss anymore. Suffice to say most of these imposters will be out of Parliament by the years end.
We can then look forward to the magnificent Ed Miliband as Energy & Climate loon. What could possibly go wrong?
Or to put it the other way – what could possibly go right?
The funny thing with Labour is that they will come against their leftie friends in the OBR given that they have decided to hand over fiscal policy to an incompetent bunch who have been wrong by over £500m in their predictions. And the bond market that torpedoed Liz Truss’s overeager attempt to move to a growth economy will react as badly if Labour want to embark on a borrowing spree. So financially Labour will run into a brick wall notwithstanding that their carbon-free by 2030 is totally undeliverable even if there was any money.
Of course Labour can do massive amounts of damage to this failing country even without much money. Forcing wealthy people to provide homes for immigrant scum, ruling that British people are last in the queue for jobs, housing benefits etc, banning heterosexuals christians from public jobs.
Of course the government hasn’t “given in”. Stop treating illusion as if it were reality. This is the agenda.
Heat pumps are electrical. Power occasionally goes out. A non-electric source of heat is necessary for emergencies. Gas, wood, propane, or rolled-up newspapers in a fire place or wood stove can be used. I have a wood stove with a catalytic burner. {expensive**} Is there ever a mention in the government documents of this need? Is the assumption that electrical service will never fail?
**I have my own source of wood (trees) and the tools and ability to harvest what I need.
Same here. My big log store is now half empty and I will spend the next few days filling it up with my own wood from a recently felled ash tree. Oil-fired central heating and the tank will be topped up in the next few weeks. A standby (propane-fuelled) generator. And just in case, a couple of camping stoves, candles and lamps.
There is inadequate generating capacity for current electrical space heating demand let alone any increases so I doubt they have thought that far ahead.
Even though the relevant Secretary of State and the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority are required under the Electricity Act 1989 to “secure that all reasonable demands for electricity are met” – so the big question is how do we lack plans to build enough new generating capacity to meet our equivalent instantaneous natural gas & heating oil demand for an unusually cold winter e.g 1947 or 1963 – https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2018/gas-consumption-during-the-beast-from-the-east-how-the-local-gas-system-kept-us-warm.
Nut Zero is a policy that cannot be achieved, but, attempting to achieve if will lead to Totalitarian 1984 Big brother style censorship and delusion.
Anyone wondering why Russia might not want to be controlled by the west, need only ask themselves this: “would any sane person want to be controlled by the insane people who now control the west?”
Makes you wonder why people fear an invasion by Russia – or is it only the ruling elite that keep talking drivel about fearing Russia?
Well the backtracking happened even quicker than I predicted! Quite why Sunak won’t stand up for the change in policy is beyond me, if he believes its the right thing to do. Let ministers resign, it’s not as if the Tories can sink any lower in the polls. Nobody who woukd vote Tory wants to be forced to buy a heat pump. But these “Tories” care more about what their current of elites yhink than what those who put them in power want.
I’d rather have a party that fears the electorate, than one who lies about supporting my political views and then does the opposite.
I am never voting for the UniParty ever again.
So a couple of tossers resign as ministers. Public response – who the f*ck are they? They would be perfect for contestants on ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother given that I have only heard of 4 of them and wouldn’t have recognised Gary Thingy.
It’s worse in Scotland under the fanatical Greens who currently rule the roost on these matters: https://www.gov.scot/about/who-runs-government/cabinet-and-ministers/minister-for-zero-carbon-buildings-active-travel-and-tenants-rights/.
I said it all here without even mentioning heat pumps (lots of supportive comments): https://metatron.substack.com/p/net-zero-climate-change-broadside.
My Scottish perspective gives a glimmer of hope for the next general election. If enough people in each constituency concentrate their vote on a single non-Uniparty candidate, they could succeed by splitting the Uniparty vote the way the separatist SNP have succeeded in Scotland since 2007 by splitting the Con/Lab/Lib Unionist vote.
Do you prefer Reform or Galloway’s “Workers Party?”
What a stupid question!
This is on the Conservatives. Not conservatives.
Real conservatism has never been tried.
Lord Callanan is hardly known for his soft pedalling on green issues. I had a long written debate with him on the pathetic standard of EPC certificates, and the fact that the Minimum Energy Performance of Buildings (No.2) Bill would basically prevent anyone selling a house rated below EPC C, as the banks will refuse to lend on them (this is already starting to happen). That stupid Bill has gone, but the banks are still being silly about it. Coutinho knows nothing about energy, and voted in favour of the Energy Act, which by definition means she is not a Conservative. A degree in the cop out “Maths and Philosophy,” she has had a few woke jobs but has mostly been in the Westminster bubble.