George Trefgarne

Will Rishi Sunak admit the truth about Net Zero?

Rishi Sunak (Credit: Getty images)

Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, popped up on television at the weekend to explain that the cost of installing a heat pump is only about £3,000, the same as a gas boiler. Hmm. Good luck with that.

That number is only true once a £5,000 grant from the government (of which only 90,000 are available) has been considered. It ignores all the costs of insulation and pipework. A friend of mine with a heat pump says about £15,000 is a more accurate number.

A lower carbon economy is a good thing, but the Net Zero policy as legally implemented in the UK has been a disaster

Inflation, largely a consequence of energy costs, remains the biggest issue not just in Britain but the world right now. We feel it particularly acutely here because UK inflation remains stubbornly high, partly due to our daft energy policy and the delusional state of discussion of this critical subject in the City, Westminster, universities, and the media.

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