UK heat pump funding cuts put heating targets at risk, experts warn

Britain’s clean heating targets were threatened by energy budget cuts announced by chancellor John Healey, according to experts cited by the Guardian on 30 October 2026. The report said more than £3bn was being cut from the energy department, much of it to support higher defence spending, including £741m from the boiler upgrade scheme.

The programme offered typical households £7,500 towards replacing gas boilers with heat pumps. Funding would increase only with inflation rather than follow a previously planned expansion. Nesta’s Andrew Sissons warned that meeting clean heating targets would be difficult. Government sources argued that shifting green costs from bills to taxation and reforming electricity pricing would encourage cleaner energy use.

The scale of the installation gap explains the concern: the report put heat pump installations in existing homes at about 60,000 annually, against a government target of 250,000 by 2030. It described the subsidy programme as a key part of the UK’s heating decarbonisation effort and wider emissions reduction plans.