UK to Slash Heat Pump Subsidies for Defence — SkimNews
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- Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, has been tasked with finding more than £2bn in savings, with hundreds of millions to come from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme's £2.7bn budget
- The Boiler Upgrade Scheme has subsidised nearly 80,000 heat pump installations since 2022 — offering £7,500 basic grants and up to £9,000 for off-grid properties — and helped build a domestic industry growing more than 25% annually
- Former energy secretary Ed Miliband agreed to the energy department's £2bn capital budget cut under PM Keir Starmer to help fund the £15bn four-year defence uplift
- Chancellor John Healey, who resigned as defence secretary in June arguing the uplift was insufficient, now faces finding an additional £4.7bn in savings over four years beyond what departments have already agreed
- Bloomberg reported ministers are also cutting spending on carbon capture and storage (with £21.7bn originally planned through 2050) and green hydrogen schemes
- Ministers are separately expected to approve the Jackdaw gasfield as soon as this week, even as they pare back clean heat funding
- Critics including Octopus Energy CEO Greg Jackson and Nesta director Madeleine Gabriel warn the cuts damage an industry just hitting scale — noting France sold four times the heat pumps the UK did last year
Why it matters: Ministers are trading climate commitments for defence cash: cutting subsidies to a heat pump industry growing 25% annually while approving a new gas field. The £15bn defence uplift forces trade-offs that risk slowing the UK's clean heat transition just as France sells four times more heat pumps and the Treasury's own framing of BUS as a middle-class subsidy is contested by supporters who say 40% went to households earning under £52,000.
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