The scheme had a budget of £150 million to fund 30,000 heat pump installations. At the end of its first year, under 10,000 households had received their £5000 subsidy voucher.
Commenting on the scheme’s failure, Mike Foster CEO of the trade body the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA) said:
“It takes a certain type of genius to fail to give away £150 million of taxpayers’ money, and this wretched scheme looks like it has done just that. When will the Government actually listen to the people, the majority of whom simply cannot afford a heat pump, subsidised or not.”
“The scheme is simply a taxpayer handout to those who don’t need it to keep the secretly funded heat pump lobby quiet. It does little for carbon saving compared to investment in insulation. It does not help people keep bills low. It takes from the poor to give to the wealthy, and it is an embarrassment of a policy.”
The scheme’s unspent budget will now be returned to the Treasury
“More taxpayer-subsidised heat pumps have probably been fitted in Cornish holiday homes than the whole of Britain’s second city, Birmingham. That is shameful. People are still hurting with high energy bills, insulating the homes of those most in need should be the priority, not giving hard-earned taxpayers’ cash to those who were going to buy a heat pump anyway. It’s utterly wasteful.”
“There was a time when a Conservative Government took pride in being fiscally prudent with taxpayers’ money. Now they just ladle out the cash on a green spending spree. What makes this profligacy even worse is that insulation measures could save more carbon, keep bills down and provide a sound economic investment for the Treasury.”