According to the Guardian and Financial Times yesterday, ministers are set to slash the budget for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), which provides grants for households replacing gas boilers with heatpumps as part of a Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) target to identify £2bn in in spending cuts.

BUS currently provides grants of between £7,500 and £9,000 for qualifying households installing heat pumps.

Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, warned the mooted cuts would be a “remarkably short-sighted” move that could undermine the UK’s long-term security. “Britain’s exposure to gas cost the Treasury £80bn in the last energy crisis,” he said. “The Boiler Upgrade Scheme budget is just 0.5 per cent of that, and is key to getting off gas. It’d be remarkably short-sighted to try to enhance our defence by cutting our path to security. It’d also put thousands of skilled jobs at risk – the very people making Britain safer and cleaner in every postcode.”

Defunding the country’s key low-carbon heating scheme would undermine the country’s whole approach to climate and energy, and it seems crazy to be doing this in the middle of an energy crisis caused by our reliance on fossil fuels. Also it has the potential to severely impact or even bankrupt businesses and heating engineers who have followed the government’s direction to invest in cleaner heating.

If the government does this it will massively impact our energy transition in the UK.