Uk labour government may cut heat pump subsidies despite promise to end “sticking-plaster politics”

The UK Labour government appears poised to dramatically reduce heat pump subsidies in its upcoming November 26 budget, potentially undermining the country’s transition away from expensive fossil fuel dependence. This move contradicts Labour’s campaign promises to move beyond short-term political fixes and address the root causes of Britain’s costly energy system.

According to Camilla Born, CEO of Electrify Britain, scaling back green energy subsidies represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how to provide long-term relief from high energy bills. After years of painful utility costs that have stretched household budgets thin, Born argues that electrification—specifically switching from gas boilers to heat pumps and from petrol vehicles to electric cars—offers the only sustainable path to lower energy expenses.

The current energy system creates a problematic paradox: it artificially keeps gas cheap through subsidies while making electricity more expensive, even though electric technologies often cost less to operate day-to-day. This legacy structure protects outdated gas-based infrastructure at the expense of modern, efficient alternatives that could deliver genuine savings to consumers.

Born warns that cutting support for heat pump adoption represents exactly the kind of “sticking-plaster politics” that Labour promised to eliminate. Instead of addressing the structural issues that make UK energy so expensive, reducing these subsidies could perpetuate the country’s dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets and delay the transition to technologies that are becoming increasingly mainstream and cost-effective for households.