The Energy & Utilities Alliance (EUA), which represents the UK heating industry, says there is growing concern that quotas for heat pump sales, rumoured to be in the government鈥檚 impending Heat and Buildings Strategy, will lead to a loss of British jobs and cheap imports dumped on UK consumers.
In what has been described as 鈥楽oviet-style production planning鈥� that could lead to Lada-quality heat pumps, the Heat and Buildings Strategy is expected to include a legal obligation called 鈥榯he market mechanism鈥�, backed up by penalties, if UK boiler manufacturers fail to sell a Whitehall-set target number of heat pumps.
EUA chief executive Mike Foster said: 鈥淎necdotally, we hear of Chinese heat pump manufacturers approaching UK firms with a view to selling cheap appliances for UK firms to badge and meet the Whitehall-imposed production quota.
鈥淥ur members, who are facing a financial penalty if they don鈥檛 supply the market with enough heat pumps to satisfy the Whitehall bureaucrats, may end up bringing these cheap imports into the UK or paying a fine if they don鈥檛. It is the most un-Conservative industrial policy I have ever seen.
鈥淲e will see innovative and successful British industry penalised because Whitehall officials are so desperate to reach a target for heat pump sales, they fail to see the bigger picture. Ministers are complicit in this. The pain will be felt in places like Preston, Hull, Derbyshire and Worcester.
鈥淭he route to net zero and low carbon homes is not Soviet-style production planning that attempts to force products into a market regardless of consumer demand. We risk the heat pump version of the old Lada factories producing lines and lines of poor-quality cars that nobody wants.
鈥淥ur members want to help the government and will be meeting to agree more practical ways to sell a full range of low carbon technologies, based on a solid understanding of industry.
鈥淐entrally planned production targets are better suited to a Soviet regime, not a government that believes in the free market. Perhaps it鈥檚 time for Ministers to take charge of this policy and not their officials. The heating industry is happy to meet them at any time to avoid a catastrophic mistake of Lada-esque proportions.鈥�
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