Reports: Heat and Buildings Strategy put on ice until the autumn

The Heat and Buildings Strategy has been delayed until the autumn amid a stand off in Whitehall over the cost of the proposals, according to reports.

Sky News reported this morning that the long-awaited strategy, which is expected to set out how the government intends to deliver the mass decarbonisation of the UK's carbon-intensive building stock, will now not be published until September at the earliest. The much-anticipated document had been widely expected to be published before Parliament breaks for summer next week.

A spokesperson from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) did not confirm whether the strategy would not now be released until the autumn.

Any delay to the strategy is set to disappoint environmental campaigners, green business groups, and opposition politicians, who have been calling on government to provide greater certainty for how it plans to deliver a mass green building retrofit programme that can decarbonise the UK's homes and offices.

Approximately 19 per cent of the UK's total emissions come from heating our buildings and as such the government is under pressure to introduce raft of regulations and incentives that can rapidly expand low carbon heat markets and incentivise builders and consumers to shift away from the gas-powered boilers that heat the majority of buildings.

Darren Jones, chair of the BEIS Committee in the House of Commons, condemned the decision to delay the policy document, arguing the Treasury needed to act faster to enable crucial climate policies.

"The heat and buildings strategy has been rumoured to be 'out next week' for about a year," he said on Twitter. "This and many other net zero policies are stuck in the Treasury until the net zero spending review in September. It's time for the Chancellor to step up."

However, the government is understood to be wary of a potential political and media backlash against the plans, which have been characterised in some quarters as an attempt to ban boilers that could cost households upwards of £10,000 in upfront costs in addition to higher energy bills.

But advocates of green heating technologies have argued that an effective package of policies could quickly drive down the cost of green heating systems, such as heat pumps, allowing them to be phased in over time in a way that reduces consumers' energy bills and enables the wider decarbonisation of the energy system.

Sky News also reported that Ministers are at loggerheads over how best recoup lost fuel duty revenue as the transition to electric vehicles gathers pace, with Number 10 keen to explore road pricing but other parts of government hostile to the concept.