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Spring budget: fuel and labour positives but missed opportunities for heat pumps
C
hancellor Jeremy Hunt has said that the UK is no longer going into recession and that inflation will fall faster although he
also warned that “there is a long way to go” in last month’s spring budget. The budget centred around childcare and pensions with the Chancellor focusing on increasing the workforce and encouraging investment. With a view to reducing carbon emissions, the budget included a commitment to invest £20bn over the next two decades on low-carbon energy projects, with a focus on carbon capture and storage. As a part of the budget’s focus on energy, the
government launched a consultation into extending the Climate Change Agreement by two years, taking to the end of 2027, which would provide further reductions in the Climate Change Levy for participants.
Cold Chain Federation chief executive Shane
Brennan said: “The cold storage Climate Change Agreement has been very successful in incentivising businesses in our industry to invest in energy efficiency, and the result has been a decade of significant energy efficiency progress in cold stores as well as important tax savings for the industry. Many operators now need to advance to more complex measures to make further energy efficiency improvements, while at the same time they are dealing with the cost impact of the energy crisis.” However, there was disappointment that more
wasn’t included in the budget to encourage the uptake of heat pumps. Henk van Den Berg, strategic business manager, heating and renewables at Daikin UK said: “If heat pumps are to become mainstream and support the UK’s net zero ambition, more needs to be done to prevent us from falling
behind other countries in the global green race. While financial support from the government is still in place, the benefits of heat pumps versus fossil fuel systems need to be properly communicated to encourage better uptake of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, bringing forward a ban on installing gas boilers in new homes, and clearer training support for installers.”
Russell Dean, Mitsubishi Electric residential
product group director said: “As many businesses plan to remove gas from their buildings over the next few years, and heat pumps are recognised as the future of both commercial and home heating in Britain, it is also vital the government supports wider adoption of the technology. To encourage this, we would have liked to have seen a commitment to roll over unspent money from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme for families to insulate their homes and install the technology. “As part of this, the government must also incentivise the training of more installers to fit heat pumps. Without this, the current target of installing 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028 is in jeopardy.”
The supply chain is heavily reliant on logistics, and the associated costs, so businesses will be relieved to see remains unchanged and that the temporary 5p cut to fuel duty on petrol and diesel, due to end in April, has been kept for another year. However, pump prices are still an issue and Paul Holland, managing director of UK Fleet, Allstar said: “The price at the pump still needs to come down. The price of a barrel of oil is roughly where it was last year, but retail margins are higher. The trajectory has to be downwards, and we can expect a drop of 10-15p in the near future, should oil prices remain at current levels.”
4 April 2023 •
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