Rishi Sunak has announced changes to his green policies. Photo: Steve Reigate/Pool/Reuters
Rishi Sunak held a hastily organized press conference in Downing Street on Wednesday to announce major changes to his environmental policies to make them more accessible to struggling households.< /p>
Although he said he remained committed to the target of bringing the UK's net disposable income to zero by 2050. The Prime Minister said changes needed to be made to ensure families could afford green laws in the wake of the cost of living crisis.
The changes will delay the switch from petrol and diesel cars to electric cars, and from gas boilers to environmentally friendly heat pumps.
In this Telegraph article, we tell you what this means for you.
A ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars in 2030 delayedThe ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will be postponed by five years, from 2030 to 2035.
This means that families who still want to switch will be able to take advantage of the fall prices for electric vehicles in the next decade.
After 2035, all new cars will be required to have zero emissions, but people will still be able to buy and sell used petrol and diesel cars.
Mr Sunak said the move would put the UK on par with most other European countries and many US states.
It comes days after the Prime Minister's predecessor Liz Truss called for the ban on petrol cars to be delayed, saying the Government's approach to achieving net-zero emissions must be «pragmatic and does not add unfair costs to society».
< p>The original deadline was set in 2020. It is being extended just three years later.
Mr Sunak said electric cars were already becoming more popular because they were becoming cheaper.
“I expect that by 2030 the vast majority «The cars sold will be electric,» he said.
< p>“Why? Because costs are reduced; the range is improving; charging infrastructure is growing.
“People are already choosing electric vehicles so much that we are registering a new one every 60 seconds. But I also think that, at least for now, that choice should be made by you, the consumer, and not by the government forcing it on you.”
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The Prime Minister said costs needed to be cut due to the cost of living crisis.
He acknowledged that the UK needs to go further in building charging infrastructure for electric vehicles and said the British car industry needs to be strengthened to compete with China.
“To give us more time to prepare, I am announcing today that we are going to ease the transition to electric vehicles,” he said. «You'll still be able to buy petrol and diesel cars and vans until 2035.
«Even after that, you'll still be able to buy and sell them used.
“We are aligning our approach with countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Australia, Canada, Sweden and US states such as California, New York and Massachusetts, and are still ahead of the rest of America and other countries such as New -York. Zealand.»
The move was welcomed by Fair Fuel UK, which said the original plan was «always doomed to fail.»
But Ford, one of Britain's most popular car brands, said the changes would “undermine” the transition to electric vehicles.
Gas boilers are here to stay
People will have «much more time» to replace their gas boilers with electric cars. heat pumps and get more money to help them make the change.
The plan was to ban all new gas boilers after 2035.
For a family living in a terraced house. house in Darlington, the initial cost could be around £10,000.
But Mr Sunak said around a fifth of homes for which heat pumps would be ineffective would be exempt from having to make the change at all.
The exemption would apply to homes running without gas. homes, people needing expensive repairs or a very large electrical connection.
The date by which most families will be able to buy gas boilers — 2035 — remains unchanged.
However, Grant handout boiler upgrade will be increased by 50 per cent and amount to a voucher worth £7,500.
This will help those looking to replace their boiler with a heat pump or other low carbon alternative.
UK progress towards net zero target
Mr Sunak said he had relaxed the target to avoid «imposing costs on tough families under pressure, at a time when technology is often still expensive and does not work in all homes.»
“Today I am announcing that we will give people much more time to make the necessary transition to heat pumps,” he said. “We will never force anyone to tear down their existing boiler and replace it with a heat pump.
“ In any case, you will only have to switch when you replace the boiler, and then not until 2035.
“And to help those households who will find it hardest, I'm introducing a new exemption today so they never have to switch at all.”
The current voucher scheme offers £5,000 for air source heat pumps and £6,000 for ground source heat pump models.
p>This was due to low demand for the upgrade scheme, with just 14,800 redeemed last week vouchers.
With a typical heat pump installation costing £13,000 before the grant, upfront costs for the devices remain high even after the grants are applied.
Green speech by the numbers
Ministers hope the scheme Boiler upgrades will become more generous and will help stimulate demand, increase sales and help manufacturers reduce prices.
Octopus Energy, which owns Northern Irish heat pump manufacturer RED, last week announced a new model, the Cozy 6, which it says could cost as little as £5,000 if no home improvements are required.
Ministers unveiled the Cozy 6 boiler upgrade plan in May 2022 to encourage more households to replace their gas boilers with electric heat pumps.
However, uptake still lags significantly behind the government's target of installing 600,000 heat pumps per year. by 2028.
Keeping oil boilers for longer
Households with oil or LPG boilers and coal heating systems face the prospect of disposing of them after 2026.
Oil boilers were to be taken out of service from this year, and the sale of new ones was to be prohibited.
Instead, Mr Sunak said the ban would be delayed until 2035, ensuring homeowners do not face the prospect of having to spend £10,000 or £15,000 on upgrading their homes over three years.
The oil boiler ban could affect around 1.7 million homes and has been the center of a backlash from Tory MPs along with former environment secretary George Eustice. comparing it with a “rural village.”
Many cited the high cost of installing heat pumps, with or without a government grant, and expressed concerns that in remote areas without a grid connection, a heat pump would not be enough to heat their property.
Improvements being made by landlords refuse< p>Landlords will no longer have to carry out costly improvements to their rental properties after Mr Sunak scrapped requirements to make homes more energy efficient.
The plans call for all homes available for rent in England and Wales to achieve an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of at least level C, the third highest efficiency rating, by 2025.
To comply with Research carried out by Hamptons estate agents found that property owners would have to spend an average of £8,000 on insulation and other improvements under the new rules.
Failure to do so could result in a fine of £30,000. .
Homes are given an EPC rating ranging from A for the most efficient homes to G for the least efficient.
It is estimated that more than 2.4 million private rented homes in England do not meet EPC category C, representing 56 per cent all private rental houses.
The de minimis rule was scheduled to take effect on April 1, 2025. for new leases and 1 April 2028 for existing leases, but campaigners warned landlords would face huge bills to insulate their properties and other improvements such as installing heat pumps.
Others said Onerous requirements threaten landlords with a sale, creating housing shortages and rising rents.
Miles Gilham of Gilham Properties, the letting agent, welcomed the cancellation of the plans.
“It’s definitely a big positive,” he said. “The EPC scheme would be a huge additional cost for landlords, especially at a time when mortgage rates are rising.
“The uncertainty surrounding the scheme has damaged the buy-to-let market. Landlords didn't know how much they would have to pay.»
Percentage of homes in England and Wales in each EPC group in 2022
Thousands of landlords have already sold properties in anticipation of energy efficiency rules coming into force.
In the first three months of the year, more than 65,000 rental properties were listed for sale. Of these, around 36,460 had poor energy efficiency, with an EPC rating of D or below, according to market analyst TwentyCi.
Mr Sunak said: “Some property owners would be forced to carry out costly upgrades in just two years. ' time.
“For a semi-detached house in Salisbury you can expect a bill of £8,000. And even if you're just renting, you'll likely see some of that translate into higher rent. This is completely wrong.
“These plans will be scrapped and while we will continue to subsidize energy efficiency, we will never force any household to do so.”
Faster connection to National Grid
Under Mr Sunak's plans, time needed to connect wind farms, solar power plants and battery power plants to the national grid will be significantly reduced.
In his speech, the Prime Minister promised to speed up projects by scrapping arcane rules blamed for decades of delays in renewable energy projects.
Businesses are currently queuing up to build billion-dollar schemes. pounds across the country.
In total, projects that could generate 300 gigawatts of electricity are waiting to be connected to the grid — compared to 65 gigawatts of systems already connected today.
< p>However, due to the first-come, first-serve rules that govern project hookups, many developers are being told they will have to wait up to 14 years before they can start generating projects. This applies even to projects that could be built by next year.
Mr Sunak said tackling the problem would be a top priority and he also pledged to speed up planning permission and set an «energy spatial plan» ', which will give developers clearer guidance on where clean energy schemes can be built.
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He said: “Right now, it could take 14 years to build new grid infrastructure.”
“There are enough projects waiting to be connected to supply more than half of our future electricity needs.”
p> >“We will develop the UK's first spatial plan for this infrastructure to give confidence to the industry and give every community a voice.
“We will speed up planning for the most nationally significant projects and end first-come, first-serve approaches to network connections by raising the bar to get in line – and ensuring those who are ready first get connected.”
One energy executive said: “At the moment, the network infrastructure is in a sclerotic state. You can't expect investors to put aside £30 million and then sit and wait over ten years before rolling it out.
“There is no world in which it would be acceptable to wait 14 years for a connection.”
An end to car sharing and no new taxes on airfares
Mr Sunak has vowed not to put forward any plans to force people to share cars, saying it would have too much of an impact on people's lifestyles.
Car sharing is promoted by environmental activists as a way to limit the number of cars. cars on the roads, reducing emissions.
Some have floated the idea of making it compulsory to use cars on the way to work.
One idea would be cars with odd numbers on their registration plates so that one day they would be able to use the roads, and the next day even number plates would be allowed.
But Mr Sunak said: “The debate over how we get to net zero has produced a number of worrying proposals and today I want to confirm that they will never happen under this Government.”
«This is a proposal for the Government to interfere with the number of passengers you can carry in your car: I have rejected it.»In his speech on Wednesday, the Prime Minister also pledged not to introduce new direct taxes on passengers to interfere with flights. .
One example of such a scheme is the frequent flyer tax, which increases with the number of flights taken per year.
Two years ago, Grant Shapps, who was then transport secretary, said the government was considering a «carbon price».
These are additional costs passed on to consumers by airlines.
G- n Shapps was considering reducing the number of free UK and EU flight allowances airlines receive, or expanding the scheme to cover other non-carbon greenhouse gases.
No taxes on meat and dairy products
The Prime Minister promised that his government would never take action to change people's diets.
As an example, he said there would be no taxes on meat and dairy products to reduce carbon emissions
Mr Sunak said he would not do anything that would “harm British families.”
A 2018 Oxford University study found that a meat tax could reduce processed meat consumption by about two servings per week in high-income countries.
Researchers suggested a 14 percent tax on red meat and 79 percent for red meat. a cent on processed meat.
This will mean the price of a 227g Tesco sirloin steak (currently £4.60) will rise by 64p to £5.24.
A pack of eight Sainsbury's pork sausages will rise in price from £2.30 to £4.12, an increase of £1.82. .
The Prime Minister said: “The proposal will force you to change your diet — and harm British farmers — by taxing meat. I refused.
“It cannot be right for Westminster to impose such significant costs on working people, especially those already struggling to make ends meet, and to interfere so much with people's lifestyles without properly informed national debate.”
No “onerous” ' recycling
Mr Sunak said any government plans to tighten recycling rules would also be scrapped.
At his press conference, the Prime Minister said he wanted to get rid of onerous schemes such as one that would force households to use seven recycling bins.
This would include six separate bins for food waste, garden waste, metal, plastic, paper and cardboard.
There would be another bin for general waste which cannot be recycled.
The plans were unveiled earlier this year as part of a nationwide standardization of recycling rules.
But council leaders warned they were unworkable and would mean more rubbish lorries on the road roads.
Mr Sunak said on Wednesday: “The proposal is that we should force you to have seven different bins in your home. I gave it up.”
Progress in recycling in the UK has been little in recent years, but in England the rate has remained at around 45% since 2015.
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