One of Labour’s biggest environmentalist backers says it should scrap almost £2.7billion of ‘handouts’ funding heat pump boilers for middle class homeowners and put the money into defence instead.
Ecotricity boss Dale Vince said the money should be used to fill a defence spending black hole amid a major row over how to boost funding for the Armed Forces.
The green millionaire is a long-term critic of the pumps, which use latent heat in the air to warm water instead of more common but less environmentally friendly gas boilers.
Under Ed Miliband’s Warm Homes Plan, an eight-figure sum has been allocated to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, worth up to £7,500 per family to install the greener option until the end of the decade.
But Mr Vince, a former supporter of Extinction Rebellion, said: ‘Labour should ditch heat pump handouts for people who already have money and support our cash-strapped military instead.
‘Trump’s war against Iran is putting Britain in the firing line.
‘We should be bolstering our defence, not handing over thousands of pounds in subsidies to people who don’t need it.
‘Let’s keep the boilers we have and buy the bombs we need.’
No10 rejected his call today, with a spokesman saying: ‘It’s important were investing in renewables and nuclear energy, all these types of energy, to bring down people’s bills.’
It comes as Rachel Reeves finds herself at the centre of a row over how to boost funding for defence.
The Chancellor is facing mounting pressure to say how the Government plans to meet a commitment to take military spending to 3 per cent of GDP by the end of the decade.
Ms Reeves last week signalled her unwillingness to use higher taxation, having already hiked the burden ‘substantially’.
But she faces a major battle with Labour MPs and unions if, as advised by former defence secretary Lord Robertson, she uses benefit cuts to find the money.
Defence bonds, which are essentially debt sold to institutional or public investors, are also being looked at as a way of allocating ring fenced cash without impacting directly on welfare spending and taxation.
Mr Miliband backed the £15billion unveiled the Warm Homes Plan in March, saying it would deliver ‘the biggest public investment in home upgrades in British history to cut bills, tackle fuel poverty, create good jobs and get us off the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets’.
‘It is clearer than ever that the future is cheap, clean, homegrown power. As Britain takes back control with record investment in renewables and nuclear, this is our plan to bring the benefits of clean power to people in their homes as quickly as we can,’ he said.
But members of the insulation industry said the plan’s over-emphasis on heat pumps, batteries and solar panels risks wasting billions in public money unless the UK’s poorly insulated housing stock is fixed first.
Mr Vince has been criticising heat pumps for some time, having used them for 20 years.
He says they are not as efficient as often claimed, have higher running costs than gas and are mainly successful in homes that are already well insulated.
In January he said they were ‘not a national solution’ to the issue of high bills.
