POLL: Should the Government relax heat pump transition?

The UK Government plans to phase out gas boilers in favour of heat pumps by 2035 at the latest, but Housing Secretary Michael Gove has said the proposals need to be reviewed. He warned that the Government’s green policies risked ‘creating a backlash’ if costs were passed onto households while finances were already tight.  He added that ministers were ‘asking too much too quickly’ after setting a 2028 deadline for homes to meet a new minimum energy efficiency threshold, telling The Telegraph : ‘I think we should relax the pace’. He also spoke about the transition to heat pumps on Times Radio on Tuesday, July 25: ‘Well, that is one area that I do think that we need to review. Again, I think it is important that new homes meet net-zero standards but one of the challenges that we have is with our existing housing stock. There are proposals to decarbonise our existing housing stock which I think are the right direction to go. ‘But the cost which some of those changes may impose on homeowners and indeed on landlords I think at this point in time we do need to be careful about imposing because again, we are living through a real cost of living challenge and what we don’t want to do is to force individuals to pay excessive sums.’ POLL: Should Government relax heat pump transition? (Image: Lorne Thomson/Redferns/Getty) The UK only installed 55,000 heat pumps in 2022 (Image: Andrew Aitchison/Getty) The UK only installed 55,000 heat pumps in 2022 and is lagging behind the Government’s target of 600,000 each year by 2028. Britain has the lowest rate in a league table of 21 European countries with 1.9 heat pumps installed for every 1,000 households compared with nearly 70 in Finland. A UK Government spokesman said that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is still aiming to phase out the installation of gas boilers by 2035. They told This is Money : ‘We are aiming to phase out the installation of new and replacement natural gas boilers by 2035, at the latest, in line with the natural replacement cycle and once costs of low carbon alternatives have come down.’ So what do YOU think? Should the Government relax the heat pump transition? Vote in our poll and leave your thoughts in the comment section below.