This is a large and technical Bill that sets in place important frameworks, particularly when it comes to carbon capture and storage and the wider deployment of hydrogen and heat networks. I will address my comments, in the time that I have today, to part 3 of the Bill, particularly the support for low-carbon heating schemes and the opportunity that this provides for doing something creative for the off-gas grid homes in this country. It links to the earlier intervention of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and to a private Member’s Bill that I introduced at the beginning of this year.
At the moment, we have 1.7 million homes in this country that are currently off the gas grid, most of which use kerosene at the moment. Under the current Government plan, which is born out of a strategy that dates all the way back to 2017—several Governments ago—the intention is that all those 1.7 million homes would be banned from having a replacement boiler after 2026 and told that, instead, they must have, effectively, either an air source heat pump or a ground source heat pump. As the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said, there is a role for those heat pumps, but they are not for every home. In particular, in rural
and especially coastal areas, air source heat pumps can be prone to rusting and decay. It is also the case that they need a lot of insulation to make them work, and, in some older homes, high levels of insulation mean less ventilation, which can lead to problems with damp, mould and all of the health problems that go with that.
Perhaps, more important than anything, the capital cost of these air source or ground source heat pumps for a single property is around four times that of a conventional boiler.