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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he ha made of the rate of transfer from gas home heating to electric over the next five years.

Meeting?our?net-zero target?will?require?virtually?all?heat in buildings to?be?decarbonised, and we believe widespread use of electric heating has the potential to contribute very deep reductions in carbon emissions.

In 2017, 13% of heat was provided by electricity in comparison with 67% from natural gas. Electric heating on gas grid remains small scale. For example, of the c30k heat pumps installed in the UK in 2019, the majority has gone to new builds and off-gas-grid households. Over the next five years, we expect deployment to continue to focus on these sectors.

There are several key consumer barriers to the widespread deployment of heat pumps and BEIS is working with industry to address these. As part of this, we have launched a £16.5m Electrification of Heat Demonstration Project, which seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of a large-scale transition to electrification of heat in Great Britain, by installing heat pumps in a representative range of homes.

The Government is planning?to?publish a^?Heat and Buildings?Strategy?in due course,?which will set out the immediate actions we will take for reducing emissions from buildings.