The proposal to “phase out” gas boilers by 2035 was originally made by the then Conservative government under Boris Johnson, who in 2021 promised a “green industrial revolution” while praising the scientific, technological and organisational strength that had delivered a vaccine for Covid that year.
Two years later, prime minister Rishi Sunak announced more funding for heat pumps, but couched his language in cautious terms, responding to the backlash in the UK from right-leaning media outlets and the gas industry, leading him to promise people would never be forced to “rip out their boilers” (which was never a proposal to begin with).
Mainstream politicians were also looking at Germany, where the far-right AfD party had run a successful campaign against similar policies on heat pumps and boiler phase-outs.
One civil servant who was working on net zero at the time said it felt like the mood had turned and the political consensus had been broken. That has since been confirmed by both Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, who have effectively put their parties in fundamental opposition to net zero.
However, a majority of the British public (58 per cent) support all new heating systems being zero carbon by 2035 (16 per cent opposed), with 50 per cent supporting a “phase-out” of fossil fuel boilers by that same date, according to new research produced by the MCS Foundation.
“We’ve got so much data that shows us that if people have had neighbours or friends who have heat pumps installed, it really does help people get over that feeling that this is going to be a massive change,” says Annabel Rice, senior political adviser at the Green Alliance. The charity and innovation agency Nesta runs a “visit a heat pump” scheme, where members of the public can see them in action.
First invented by a council engineer in Norwich in 1945, heat pumps basically move heat from one place to another, warming or cooling a building as needed.
“I started working as a plumber nearly 20 years ago and worked for a heat pump company in 2024. I’ve been into countless people’s homes to speak to them about, and install, heat pumps. They can seem a bit confusing, but when you have a good chat about how they work, what they do and what they cost, most people can see how big the benefits are,” says Hannah Spencer MP.
“Heat pumps really could help people to save money as the price of gas is shooting up, but the government needs to take swift action,” said Rice. “Heat pumps physically insulate us from being trapped on gas and trapped on these volatile markets.”
However, action has been slow, despite the energy shock in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine, when gas prices went up 180 per cent in two weeks, prompting governments, including the UK, to intervene to control prices and subsidise household energy costs.
The UK gas industry has come under heavy criticism, with campaigners accusing members of funding campaigns against heat pumps in an effort to undermine efforts to move away from gas.
In February, ClientEarth sent legal letters to ten companies with “evidence suggesting that certain companies joined together to influence the development of the UK home heating market, including by potentially misleading consumers into thinking that heat pumps are not a viable option”. If proven, this could be a breach of competition law in the UK.
“The gas networks, they’ve got a huge market in the UK, with 85 per cent of homes having gas boilers. And it means that they’ve got billions of pounds worth of assets to protect,” says Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. She says there is an “ecosystem of doubt and misinformation” that is holding back heat pumps in the UK.
The question following the conflict between Iran and the US and Israel is whether fossil fuels have become a fundamentally insecure energy source.
Even if the UK were to double-down on the dwindling fossil fuels it could extract from the North Sea, it still would not be able to control the market price and be able to keep consumer costs under control.
Meanwhile, there are few loud advocates in the political space for heat pumps. “I’m not particularly seeing any real champions for this in the political space. And I really think that that is going to be massively important,” says Rice.
Even the Labour government continues to hedge, putting £2.7bn into heat pumps but failing to reinstate a “phase out” of gas boilers. In politics, practice is as important as policy. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is planning cuts focused on staff working on heat pumps and net zero buildings, according to insiders in the department. This means that around 300 of the 700 people working on these policies and their delivery are facing redundancy.
The presentation used to confirm this news to staff included one slide entitled “All parts of the group need to work effectively for us to deliver”, illustrating how the parts of a combustion engine car work in what can only be described as an inappropriate metaphor.
MCS is calling on Labour to revisit their policy and press ahead with policies to “commit to clean heat, ensuring all new heating systems have zero carbon emissions from 2035” and to remove all the social and environmental levies on bills to reduce the price of electricity for consumers by an estimated £500 a year.
“So many people would love to have a heat pump but they can’t afford one. That’s why, along with freezing energy price caps, we need the government to increase subsidies and investment in heat pump and retrofitting schemes,” says Spencer, emphasising the importance of upfront support to drive wider adoption.
“Even under the last government, we started to see heat pump sales rising and rising,” says Ralston. “The incentives that they put in place obviously were working.”
The market for heat pumps is growing, albeit slowly, in the UK compared with the rest of Europe. “The question is, could it grow more if there wasn’t all of this confusion and misinformation,” Ralston says.
To end that confusion, the Labour government would have to show greater leadership than it has done up to this point.
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