Starmer: I will not force you to get rid of your gas boiler

19 comments

1. I fit electric boilers for a company.

   you don’t want them, stick to a Worcester gas boiler all the way people, cling on to that fucker till it disintegrates

2. ***The Telegraph reports:***

   Sir Keir Starmer has insisted the Labour Government will not force people to rip out their gas boilers as part of its [net zero plans](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/net-zero/).

   The Prime Minister said the green transition was “not about barreling down on individuals and imposing a [disproportionate burden on them](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/22/labour-net-zero-plans-risk-poorer-households-subsidising-t/)”, before adding: “I am not going to tell people what to do with their boilers.”

   Sir Keir was speaking during an appearance at an engineering firm near Runcorn, where he announced the new head of [Great British Energy (GB Energy)](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/25/great-british-energy-profit-five-years-ed-miliband/), the Government’s new state-owned energy company.

   Jurgen Maier, the former head of Siemens UK, will be the chairman of GB Energy, which will invest taxpayer money in renewable energy development.

   Sir Keir said he stood by a claim made during the election campaign that creating a clean electricity grid by 2030 would save households an average of £300 a year on their bills. But he added that achieving it would depend on “early firm decisions being made” by GB Energy to push through [renewable energy](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/clean-energy/) projects.

   The claim was questioned during the campaign by the Conservative Party and energy experts, who said it relied upon out-of-date figures used in a think tank report.

   **Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/25/starmer-not-force-rid-of-your-gas-boiler-net-zero/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/25/starmer-not-force-rid-of-your-gas-boiler-net-zero/)

3. Starmer please take my old boiler

   I’ve had enough of her

4. Of course he won’t. We don’t have the grid infrastructure to survive everyone heating their homes with electricity, heat pump or otherwise. In Scotland we don’t even have the grid infrastructure to cope with TV pickup unless you’re in the central belt.

5. We need lots of cheap green energy that we were promised a decade ago before we can replace gas boilers with electric heating.

   The infrastructure is being built but the problem is that the wholesale price of electricity is dictated by gas regardless of how it was produced.

6. Starmer ain’t gonna force me to do anything. Who does he think he is?

7. Happy to hear starmer ain’t giving in to that woke nonsense.

8. He doesn’t have a clue, easy words but no idea of reality. Do any of them?

9. I’ve been married to her for the last thirty years. So what if she inadvertently releases a little gas every now and then?

10. If they’re putting an air source heat pump on my house they’ll need to build and extension to put the water tank in . So they’ve no chance. They’ll pry my gas boiler from my warm dead hands

11. These debates are exactly why we’re never going to do anything about climate change

12. you cant make us what to stop apart from driving drunk.

13. There needs to be a proper project to work out how to insulate older buildings, like Victorian terraced homes, without causing issues like damp. It can be done, it just needs some effort.

    Then take the carbon levies off of electricity and add them onto gas. Then it’s significantly cheaper to run a heat pump than a gas boiler.

    Then people won’t need to worry about if they heat with gas or electric. Poorer houses will actually be significantly better off, it’s a disgrace that people aren’t helped out of fuel poverty.

14. Why is he always dignifying and responding to every piece of made up, bad faith bollocks in the Telegraph and Daily Mail? Grow a pair. 

15. So they want electric heat, electric cars, are we not putting all our eggs in one basket. I fear this could go very wrong in time.

16. Gas is the most efficient method of heating water and your home. Don’t let them con you into burning money for heat.

17. This is getting silly.

    No one is going to be forced to swap an existing boiler

    BUT

    You will not be able to install new gas boilers within the next decade

    And by about 2040 the gas grid will inevitably start to be decommissioned so a boiler bought in the next 5 years may well be redundant before the end of its life.

    This is a natural result of necessary decarbonisation. 

    We can see the devastation climate change is already causing and meanwhile we’re forcing politicians to do performative denials about gas phase out.

18. Gas can be made fully renewable by replacing it with biogas (also a good use for food waste) and it requires no modification to homes. There’s not much reason to force a conversion to electric from an environmental standpoint. You don’t even get a boost in efficiency as burning gas for heat is basically 100% efficient no matter if it’s in a power plant or a home boiler

    Indoor air quality is a pretty good reason though.

19. i cant take the level of sensible noises coming from this government.