UK Could Ban New Gas Boilers Within a Decade Under Net Zero Proposals

A giant sand artwork adorns New Brighton Beach to highlight the forthcoming COP26 global climate conference on in Wirral, Merseyside, on May 31, 2021. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

New gas boilers should be phased out within a decade, the review on the UK government’s “net zero” policy has urged.

The review, carried out by Conservative MP Chris Skidmore and published on Jan. 13, calls on the UK to phase out gas boilers by 2033, rather than 2035.

Under Skidmore’s proposals, the government should legislate for the Future Homes Standard so that no new homes will be built with a gas boiler from 2025.

He also urged the government to adopt a 10-year mission to make heat pumps a widespread technology in the UK and legislate for the end of new and replacement gas boilers by 2033 at the latest.

Undated photo of a heat pump. Octopus Energy/Handout via PA

The review also recommended plans to increase solar and onshore wind generation, including a target of increasing solar generation fivefold by 2035.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Skidmore said that the UK needs a “new approach” to net zero adding: “There is an active, strategic choice to be made. Does the UK wish to compete in the net zero race, with the chance to lead, or do we wish to simply observe from the sidelines?”

Business and Energy Secretary Grant Shapps said he was “grateful” to Skidmore for his report, which he said, “offers a range of ideas and innovations for us to consider as we work to grasp the opportunities from green growth.”

Skidmore was commissioned by Liz Truss’s government in September 2022 to consider how the country could deliver “maximum economic growth and investment” alongside the government’s climate change ambitions, while also considering the need for energy security and the costs for the public.

High Cost of Heat Pumps

The UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) projects that by 2050 all heating in British homes will be provided by low-carbon sources, of which 52 percent will be heat pumps, which run on electricity and work like a fridge in reverse to extract energy from the air or ground.

In November 2020, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to install 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028.

Critics have warned that the UK government’s push to replace gas boilers with heat pumps will cost taxpayers dearly.

The government’s three-year Boiler Upgrade Scheme came into force on April 1, 2022, which pays households £5,000 ($6,100) towards the roughly £18,000 ($22,000) bill of purchasing and installing a heat pump.

The government allocated £450 million to the scheme, which will cover around 90,000 households. But environmental activists have called for the scheme to be extended.

If it is extended to cover all 23 million homes currently using a gas boiler, the scheme could cost £115 billion ($140 billion), according to a study conducted by the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA), a UK pressure group campaigning for a low-tax society.

There have also been concerns over the effectiveness of heat pumps in heating homes.

The Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee of the House of Commons admitted in February 2022 that heat pumps may not be able to “heat homes adequately” if the homes are not sufficiently insulated.

The committee said failing to address the concerns could lead to “scheme failure.”

“If people are encouraged to switch to low carbon heating sources without the knowledge or incentive for energy efficiency upgrades, then there are risks of scheme failure and loss of public trust if the new low carbon heating sources are not heating homes to the desired temperature and insulation,” the report said.

Support For Net Zero

The UK has signed into law a policy to achieve net zero by 2050 with the Conservative government setting out a strategy called “Build Back Greener” to decarbonise all sectors of the UK economy.

The UK’s National Audit Office (NAO) said in December 2020 that the government’s commitment to achieving net zero by 2050 is a “colossal challenge” that could cost hundreds of billions of pounds.

According to a YouGov poll conducted in November 2022, excluding “don’t knows,” 62 percent of respondents wanted a referendum on UK’s net zero policy as compared with 58 percent asked the same question in 2021, before the COP26 climate summit.

Car26, a group that commissioned the poll, is campaigning for a referendum on net zero and a pause in carbon-related regulations until such a ballot is held.

Car26 said that across all demographics, there was more support than opposition to holding a referendum.

The online poll conducted between Nov. 21 and 22 asked 1,661 people “To what extent do you support or oppose holding a national referendum to decide whether or not the UK pursues a Net Zero Carbon policy?”

Excluding “don’t knows,” 66 percent of 2019 Labour voters backed a poll, compared with 60 percent of Liberal Democrat voters and 56 percent of Conservative voters.

Lib Dem voters were the keenest, with only 15 percent “don’t knows,” compared with 25 percent for Labour and 24 percent for the Tories.

Remainers and Leavers supported a net zero referendum, at 58 percent and 61 percent respectively. Both sexes polled the same with 62 percent support.

Owen Evans and PA Media contributed to this report.