Committee on Climate Change: Progress Report

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The Chancellor will be setting out our financial policies in this area when he makes his Statement but, as I said in an earlier answer, we will be publishing a heat and building strategy in due course, which will address many of these issues. The noble Lord’s point is well made.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in its Future Support for Low Carbon Heat consultation, BEIS acknowledges the significant role that heat pump technology will play. Why, then, is the support proposed for heat pump technology restricted to 45 kilowatts, and therefore small-scale domestic settings, cutting out even those currently deployed or planned for supermarkets, schools, universities and businesses? If we are to build back greener, is not this technology worthy of support?

[Lord Callanan]

I very much agree with the noble Baroness that heat pump technology requires support. In line with our commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions, we consider the role of heat pumps in driving down emissions extremely important. This includes large-scale heat pumps. We have the clean heat grant, designed as part of a wider package of measures to support the decarbonisation of heat. The focus of the scheme is on supporting the supply chains that will be needed to phase out the installation of high-carbon fossil fuels in heating and take it off the gas grid.