{"id":606399,"date":"2026-05-27T10:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/606399\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T10:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:13:07","slug":"ministers-under-fire-for-wasting-800m-on-heat-pump-subsidies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/606399\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers under fire for wasting \u00a3800m on heat pump subsidies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ms Coutinho said: \u201cHanding hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers\u2019 money to wealthy families so they can buy heat pumps is money that would be much better spent scrapping some of the taxes and levies that are pushing up everyone\u2019s energy bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to stop taxing, bribing and subsidising people to drive certain cars or heat their home in certain ways. We need to just make electricity cheap and bring back consumer choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Net zero is poised to become one of the key battlegrounds before the next general election, with Reform UK pledging to scrap any policies aimed at hitting the 2050 target and cut all subsidies for renewable energy.<\/p>\n

It stands in stark contrast to Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, who has doubled down on his net zero push as the war in Iran drives up energy costs.<\/p>\n

The former Labour leader, who was defeated in the 2015 election, is now among the contenders to replace Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister in a potential party leadership battle.<\/p>\n

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme<\/a> was first introduced in 2022 by the Conservative government with a budget of \u00a3450m for three years. Mr Miliband has since extended the programme and increased its funding.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: \u201cThe British public is showing record demand for heat pumps.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Boiler Upgrade Scheme has supported many households to install a heat pump, who otherwise would not have gone ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesman added: \u201cThrough our Warm Homes Plan<\/a>, low-income families could get a heat pump at no cost at all, as we lift up to one million households out of fuel poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ms Coutinho said: \u201cHanding hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers\u2019 money to wealthy families so they can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,34799,1294,9610,1344,59,3361,5438,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-606399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-claire-coutinho","tag-economy","tag-ed-miliband","tag-energy","tag-gb","tag-heat-pumps","tag-standard","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}