Households are facing the threat of a new £40 ‘boiler tax’ as Labour consults on plans to raise heat pump targets for manufacturers – despite waning demand from consumers. The Telegraph has more.
Targets will be ramped up to as high as 10% of boiler sales under proposals by Ed Miliband, who resurrected the controversial scheme last month despite fears it would push up the price of gas boilers.
The Clean Heat Market Mechanism (CHMM) threatens fines of up to £500 for each heat pump manufacturers failed to sell below a government-set target, currently at 6%.
Analysis of installation figures in the past 12 months shows demand is “flatlining”, threatening the Energy Secretary’s ambition of seeing 600,000 heat pumps fitted every year from 2028.
Experts said the price of a typical gas boiler would rise by £40 as a result of the penalties.
Monthly installations of air-source heat pumps have fluctuated between 4,000 and 5,800 in the 12 months to April, according to MCS, the installers’ accreditation body.
The Energy Department maintains installations have risen by a quarter since last year, but Mike Foster, of the Energy and Utilities Alliance lobby group, said “the trend line, which averages out the 12 months but also suggests in which direction the level of installs is going, is flatlining”.
He added: “The Clean Heat Market Mechanism (CHMM), which spawned the ‘boiler tax’, is a bad policy. Always was and always will be. It does nothing to stimulate demand for heat pumps, which is what is lacking.
“Appliance manufacturers will make products that sell, that’s just basic commerce. Fining British businesses because consumers don’t want a product they make is simply nonsense, and nothing changes that.
“It’s like fining the local butcher because people aren’t eating enough greens.”
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