Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he (a) is taking and (b) plans to take to promote the installation of heat pumps in domestic properties.

Heat pumps have an important role to play in decarbonising heat in our homes and businesses. The government is committed to supporting the growth of the UK heat pump industry and through the Renewable Heat Incentive we are spending £2.8bn between 2018 and 2021 to support innovative low carbon heat technologies in homes and businesses, including heat pumps.

By 2025 the Government will introduce a Future Homes Standard for new build homes to be future-proofed with low carbon heating and world leading levels of energy efficiency, to create healthy homes that are fit for the future, have low energy bills, and are better for the environment. The Future Homes Standard will be implemented through an uplift to the Building Regulations, subject to consultation. We will expand on the technical detail of these proposals during the 2019 Part L consultation.

BEIS is considering the future policy framework for supporting electrification of heat and we are looking to launch an electrification of heat demonstration project in 2019 to inform further our thinking on the feasibility of a large-scale transition to heat pumps.