The Government will scrap its plan to ban new gas boilers by 2035 according to reports in the media.

Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said: "An overarching plan for how the UK's homes will become more efficient and move away from relying on gas heating, as high dependency on gas boilers is a major part of the reason the UK was so badly hit by the gas crisis.”

However, the Government has found the current heat pump technology has been less favoured by the public than anticipated, and on top of other energy price increases, it has baulked at imposing a ban, and potentially forcing another unpopular policy.

As Ralston points out: "Every home we insulate and heat pump we install means we need less gas that will increasingly come from abroad as North Sea output continues its inevitable decline.” Generated, in part, by Government policies that shift, rather than reduce, carbon emissions from the North Sea to elsewhere.

Both Conservative and Labour have been keen supporters of heat pumps, using the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) to help accelerate installations (around 60,000 so far) but the UK has lagged several other European countries in take up.

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