Energy minister confirms ‘boiler tax’ will go ahead

The government will implement its controversial “boiler tax” after a backlash from ministers to reports that it would be scrapped or delayed.

Energy efficiency minister Lord Callanan confirmed that the clean heat mechanism (CHMM) will come in to force from April as previously planned, when questioned in the House of Lords this week.

As previously revealed by Utility Week, Callanan had threatened to resign from his post over the mooted volte-face alongside energy security minister Graham Stuart.

Utility Week now understands that minister for affordability and skills Amanda Solloway had also threatened to stand down if the CHMM was scrapped.

The CHMM, which is modelled on the zero emissions mandate being introduced in the car market, is designed to ensure manufacturers install a certain number of heat pumps for every fossil fuel boiler that they sell.

Under current proposals for the scheme, which is due to come into force this April, manufacturers will have to pay a £3,000 fine for each heat pump installation that they fail to deliver.

This ratio starts at one heat pump per 24 boilers sold from April and then becomes more demanding over subsequent years.

Officials within DESNZ are also understood to have been concerned about the last-minute nature of the potential reversal of policy, which has already been vetted by other government departments through the cross-Whitehall “write round” process. Industry analysts also warned that removing the scheme would “jeopardise heat pump investment” in the UK.

However, Callanan has now confirmed that the CHMM remains an “essential part” of meeting the government’s target of installing 600,000 heat pumps by 2028 and its statutory carbon budgets.

He also said the government is “fully committed” to supporting the transition to low-carbon heating, including the 2028 target of 600,000 heat pump installations per year.

Callanan was also questioned on a report that the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA) has been paying a PR agency to “spark outrage” by planting “hundreds of anti-heat pump propaganda articles” in local and national media.

Describing the report in climate change website Desmog as “very good investigative journalism”, the minister said: “I am supportive of a sensible debate on competing technologies but planting misleading and false stories about heat pumps to negatively affect public support for the technologies is, frankly, a disgrace, and the big boiler manufacturers that fund the EUA should be ashamed of themselves.”

The EUA  said: “Last year we categorically denied we had instructed a PR agency to run an anti-heat pump campaign. There was no such campaign and there was never any payment made by EUA or its members to finance something that frankly did not exist.”