The Government has rowed back on its commitment to phase out all gas boilers in rented homes by 2035 following comments by Michael Gove.
Talking to Times Radio, the housing secretary said that “there are proposals to decarbonise our existing housing stock, which I think are the right direction to go.
“But the costs which some of those changes may impose on homeowners, and indeed landlords, I think that at this point in time we do need to be careful about”.
The announcement will disappoint the heat pump lobby, who only last month called for the banning of gas boilers to be brought forward to 2028.
U-turn
Gove’s comments follow another U-turn on energy efficiency earlier this week when he said his Government would relax the rules for the MEES scheme, which at the moment requires most rented properties to reach a band ‘C’ EPC by 2025 and 2028 (for new and then existing tenancies) to be rented out legally.
Gove went on to say during the radio interview that “there is particular pressure that’s been placed on the private rented sector – they have to move faster than other in order to meet energy efficiency standards – I think we’re asking a little too much of them and therefore we will give a greater degree of breathing space”.
But these announcements may not go down well electorally, even if it’s popular among landlords.
A poll by Opinium published this week found that, among voters who voted Tory in in 2019 and planned to switch to Labour at the next election, 57% felt that the prime minister was not green enough while 25% felt he had got it about right and 9% ‘gone too far’.
