Mass electric heating is ‘delusional’, says union boss

Mass electrification of home heating has been branded “nonsense” and “delusional” by the leader of the UK’s third biggest union.

Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB, used a fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference to issue a broad ranging attack on current approaches to curbing emissions.

Arguing that a disproportionate policy focus is being devoted to electricity, he said: “Between three and four times as much energy goes down our gas infrastructure as it does through our electricity cables and that reality is not going to change anytime soon.

“The idea that we’re going to be digging up our gas infrastructure and putting in three- or four-times bigger cables is just nonsense, not least because we can’t even get any cables made at the moment, because there’s only four manufacturers in the world and they’re all full up till 2030.

“If we were to decommission our gas infrastructure, it would cost an absolute fortune so gas is going to be here for a long time to come.”

He added: “We’ve got a wonderful gas infrastructure built in the public sector, and a huge opportunity to use that infrastructure to protect jobs and to ensure that people’s bills are not going through the roof.

“If people think the future is 100% electricity or there’s going to be a big bang switch off, they are just plain wrong.

“If anybody suggests we’re going all electric for home heating, they are delusional. It’s not going to happen and I challenge any politician to put that in a manifesto and see how they get on.

“This has to be more than a middle-class indulgence and has to be rooted in the world,” Smith said, adding a jibe that ground source heat pump owners are likely to have them in their second homes.

“Too much of this debate is middle class people and politicians doing to working people, putting people out of jobs, putting people’s bills up and failing to deliver on the things that they’ve promised. We have to take people with us, we need to protect jobs and we need to upskill people.

“Insofar as we’re in the midst of any transition it is not a just one and we should stop talking nonsense about just transitions because the way we’ve reduced emissions in this country is by shutting industry and exporting jobs to countries like China.”

But he said at the event, which was sponsored by National Gas, that hydrogen must be part of a decarbonised heat and power mix that would include a role for greater electrification.

The GMB, which is one of the three biggest affiliated trade unions to Labour, is heavily represented in the gas industry.

Smith’s comments are in stark contrast to comments made by Ovo chief executive during the Conservative Pary Conference last week when he declared it a “waste of time” to debate hydrogen as a home heating option.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference, Ovo CEO Raman Bhatia said the advantages of heat pumps mean the technology is “unstoppable”.

Despite rowing back on targets to phase out gas boilers, prime minister Rishi Sunak has increased Boiler Upgrade Scheme grants to £7,500 in a bid to encourage greater uptake of heat pumps.

The government is also sticking by its 600,000 installations a year target which it aims to reach by 2028.