New boiler rules for households in England are set to change from 2035. The Government is set to ditch plans to ban new gas boilers from 2035 despite pushing for people to switch to heat pumps, it has emerged in the wake of Christmas.
A total ban on gas boilers by 2035 is set to be scrapped by the Labour Party government. Homeowners won’t now be forced to replace gas boilers with a green alternative when their home heating needs an upgrade, the UK’s i newspaper reported.
New housebuilding standards, known as the future homes standard (FHS), are set to be published this year. These will reportedly still include a de facto ban on gas boilers in new homes and would require newly built homes to be more energy efficient and emit less carbon.
Rules will likely mean gas boilers will no longer meet the minimum standards for green energy efficiency. The previous Conservative Party government, led by Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, had promised to ban the sale of new gas boilers by 2035.
But last year Mr Sunak announced a backtrack on environmental policies including weakening the ban to an 80 per cent phase-out. Now the Labour government has scrapped plans for a total ban altogether but will still introduce tight rules for developers building new homes.
“We want to help people get a heat pump as families can save around £100 (€121) a year compared to a gas boiler by using a smart tariff effectively,” the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said in a statement.
Speaking before the general election last year, Labour’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said “We haven’t stuck with the Government’s 2035 target when you can’t replace your gas boiler. I know that we’ve got to show that heat pumps are affordable and are going to work for people.”