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A Sky News investigation into potentially misleading and confusing boiler marketing involving the use of hydrogen in home heating has prompted several companies to remove statements about the gas from their websites.

It comes as the chief executive of the UK’s independent climate change committee told Sky News that “no one should be installing a gas boiler thinking that hydrogen is a sure thing” or a way of futureproofing their home.

Hydrogen, which burns without emitting carbon dioxide, is likely to play a significant role in decarbonising heavy industry and hitting net zero targets, but the government has said its potential use in residential properties won’t be decided until 2026.

Despite this uncertainty, Sky News has found several companies making confusing and potentially misleading claims about hydrogen as part of the sales process for standard gas boilers.

Boilers

The website for online retailer Boiler Central contained a video in which an adviser says: “With the push towards a greener future, most new boilers are now having the hydrogen ready compatibility built into them, helping not only future-proof your investment of a new boiler, but ensuring your energy bills and carbon footprint remain as low as possible.”

But boilers that could in theory accept a blend of up to 23% hydrogen are not new, in fact this capability has been required by law since 1996.

Conversely, boilers that are ready to burn 100% hydrogen aren’t available to buy yet.

In addition, hydrogen can also be more expensive than gas, with a recent assessment by energy analysts Cornwall Insight suggesting it could be up to 70% more expensive to run a home on 100% hydrogen fuel.

And although hydrogen burns cleanly, it can be carbon intensive to make, depending on the production technique.

A recent report by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee said that although there are plans in place to expand clean or “green” hydrogen production it noted that “currently in the UK, hydrogen is overwhelmingly produced from fossil-fuel intensive processes – so called ‘grey hydrogen'”.

Boilers

Boiler Central’s director James Elston denied misleading customers but accepted the company’s content could have been clearer.

In an interview he told Sky News that Boiler Central had made changes to its website.

He said: “What we’ve looked at is just tidying up some of the generalisations.

“We’re saying a new boiler is more efficient than an old, it can save you money and it can save you on your carbon footprint.

“Those are all true, true statements.

“Linking it directly to hydrogen is where we’ve separated… where we’ve changed the content.

Boiler Central is not alone.

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Manufacturer Worcester Bosch’s website claimed that hydrogen “is what the government will be introducing into the UK gas grid” and “the UK will, eventually, switch from natural gas to 100% hydrogen”.

In response to questions from Sky News the company removed the statements from the website and said in a written response: “Ensuring our customers have all the information they need to make home heating related purchase decisions with confidence is paramount.

“Worcester Bosch continues to review and adapt product related communications to reflect industry updates on an ongoing basis.

“We are looking to change the wording on this particular web page to reflect your observations.”

Separately, an investigation by media platform openDemocracy and shared exclusively with Sky News recorded British Gas boiler sales advisers making potentially misleading and confusing claims.

One said: “We do sell gas boilers that are hydrogen ready, so when we do make the switch to hydrogen… you will not have to purchase a new boiler, so you have your future covered there.”

Another said that a hydrogen ready boiler would be cheaper to run “because the cost of hydrogen itself is deemed to be a lot cheaper compared to natural gas”.

They added “all the country will be hydrogen eventually”.

Boilers

British gas owner Centrica told Sky News: “The journey to net zero is complex and accurate information is really important to us.

“Our training and support is designed to ensure consistency and accuracy across our advisors.

“This is a fast-moving subject and our teams do a great job – we’ve listened to the couple of calls in which our advisers were asked very specific and detailed questions about hydrogen, and some elements of the conversation went beyond the training.

“This is isolated and we will give these guys some more support on the role hydrogen will play in net zero – which will be needed to help the UK hit emission targets.”

Chief executive of the UK’s independent climate change committee Chris Stark told Sky News: “The… big question is whether you start to use [hydrogen], particularly in homes, and we just don’t have the evidence to support that yet.

“No one should be installing a gas boiler now thinking that hydrogen is a sure thing and that this is a way of future proofing.”

Boilers

Consumer affairs publication Which? recently published this advice: “The viability of hydrogen for home heating hasn’t yet been proven. Trials have been proposed by government and gas companies to see if it works at a community level, but it’s been difficult to get local consent for live experiments in real communities.

“Consumers are yet to find out what hydrogen fuel would cost and what sort of infrastructural changes would be needed to pipe it into people’s homes.

“Because of uncertainty around the role of hydrogen for heating, it’s not recommendable to buy a gas boiler on the rationale that it will ‘become’ a hydrogen boiler, or to forego other low-carbon heating technologies solely on the basis that hydrogen is around the corner.”

Sky News shared the material described in this article with the Competition and Markets Authority.

The watchdog’s director of consumer protection Sabrina Basran highlighted the organisation’s recent report describing its “concerns that people could be duped into handing over their hard-earned money when businesses market boilers as being able to use hydrogen”.

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She said: “While we can’t comment on individual firms, these claims may be misleading and risk greenwashing consumers into thinking these products are more environmentally friendly than they are. Any business marketing or selling boilers as ‘hydrogen-blend’ or ‘hydrogen-ready’ should ensure they are treating shoppers fairly and complying with consumer protection law.

“This includes not giving a deceptive impression of the environmental benefits of their products, using accurate descriptions to be clear that boilers cannot run on hydrogen now, and ensuring they provide the information needed to make informed decisions.

“We’ll be publishing new guidance to help businesses meet their legal obligations when marketing products in the green heating and insulation sector, as well as considering whether further action, such as enforcement, is necessary.”

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Trump agrees further tariff concessions but April threat remains

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Trump agrees further tariff concessions but April threat remains

Donald Trump has announced that most goods imported from Mexico are to be exempt from his trade tariff regime for at least four weeks, just days after the charges were imposed.

He confirmed the move following a phone call with his Mexican counterpart Claudia Sheinbaum and, according to his commerce secretary, was due to announce a similar concession to Canada later in the day.

“We are working hard, together, on the Border, both in terms of stopping Illegal Aliens from entering the United States and, likewise, stopping Fentanyl,” Mr Trump posted on Truth Social.

The latest climbdown by the US president came after he surprised financial markets on Wednesday by waiving tariffs against carmakers following pleas from motor industry bosses.

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The White House revealed then that parts due to flow into the US from Mexico and Canada as part of the manufacturing supply chain would not qualify for tariffs so long as they complied with an existing trade agreement struck between the three.

‘Rules of origin’ guidelines under the USMCA deal allow goods to move between the three countries tariff-free if they qualify with a designation that they were made in North America.

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US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told Sky’s US partner network CNBC that if the concession was extended to Canada, then more than half of usual cross border trade volumes would be exempt.

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Why are tariffs such a big deal?

He too signalled there were signs of progress in Mr Trump’s dispute with America’s closest trading partners, saying each had worked hard to make progress in tackling imports of Fentanyl – blamed for high crime and deaths in US communities.

But Mr Lutnick explained that, as things stand, the reprieve would only last until 2 April when the Trump administration plans to impose reciprocal tariffs – on top of the 25% charges that came into force on Tuesday.

The car industry believes that no products from Canada and Mexico are currently subject to tariffs as they comply with the USMCA deal agreed in 2020.

It should spare consumers extra costs of at least $4,000 on the purchase of a new vehicle, industry data showed.

While that could still change from 2 April, Mr Trump is under intense pressure to relax his tariff regime permanently amid a backlash from US firms and financial market investors who fear it is self defeating.

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Millions in compensation expected over Bank IT failures
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A closely-watched forecast has even suggested that the threats of a trade war were enough to push the US economy into recession before Mr Trump took office.

The dollar has sunk in value and US government borrowing costs have risen on the back of the turmoil.

It is widely expected that the European Union will be next to face tariffs – possibly from 2 April – after Trump threatened action “very soon” just last week.

Commenting on the threat to the eurozone from such a move, the president of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde said on Thursday: “Just the threat of those tariff increases and potential retaliations are putting a brake on – on investment, on consumption decisions, on employment, hiring, all the rest of it.

While Mr Trump has not issued a specific threat against the UK, her counterpart at the Bank of England Andrew Bailey told a committee of MPs on Wednesday that the US should work “multi-laterally” rather than bilaterally to resolve its disputes.

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Millions in compensation for customers impacted by Barclays outages

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Millions in compensation for customers impacted by Barclays outages

Barclays is to pay millions in compensation for recent IT outages which prevented customers from banking.

The lender said it expects to pay between £5m and £7.5m in compensation to customers for “inconvenience or distress” caused by a payday outage last month, the influential Treasury Committee of MPs said.

The glitch began at the end of January and lasted several days.

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This was caused by “severe degradation” in the performance of their mainframe computer, a large computer used by big organisations for bulk data processing.

It resulted in the failure of 56% of Barclays’s online payments.

Up to £12.5m, however, could be paid when all outages over the last two years from January 2023 and February 2025 are factored in, the committee said.

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It would be by far the biggest amount of compensation paid by a firm in the last two years. Irish bank Bank of Ireland would be the second having issued £350,000 in compensation.

The committee is investigating IT problems at all banks that prevent or limit customer access.

Why does this keep happening?

As part of their inquiries, banks said common reasons for IT failures included problems with third-party suppliers, disruption caused by systems changes and internal software malfunctions.

The responses were received before last Friday’s online banking failures which caused difficulties for millions on payday but the committee said it would request data on the latest disruption.

A recurring problem

The nine top banks written to by the Treasury Committee accumulated 803 hours of unplanned outages, they said, equivalent to 33 days.

These hours were comprised of 158 individual IT failures. Barclays’ payday failure is not captured in the numbers.

As a result, the bank with the longest outages was NatWest with 194 hours of failures.

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Trump moves to exclude carmakers from tariff pain

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Trump moves to exclude carmakers from tariff pain

Donald Trump is to exclude carmakers across North America from the pain of US tariffs levelled against Mexico and Canada, following apparent pressure from motor bosses.

The White House confirmed the concession was made after the president spoke to the bosses of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis in a call on Wednesday.

Each company has manufacturing operations and suppliers in Canada and Mexico.

There will be a tariff exemption of at least a month on vehicles made across the continent but only if a previous agreement on so-called ‘rules of origin’ is implemented in full.

It governs where a product is first sourced and where a tariff may apply during transit across borders.

“Reciprocal” tariffs are still planned from April, the president’s spokesman said.

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Manufacturers have complained of being worst affected by the imposition of 25% tariffs against both Canada and Mexico since Tuesday because flows of parts between the three countries can be hit by tariffs multiple times.

The complicated nature of their operations can mean a single component crosses a border more than once during the production process.

Such a big spike in costs from tariffs poses a big risk to sales as customers are asked to pay more to help compensate for the sanctions.

Automakers’ share prices have been among the worst hit since Mr Trump took office again in January.

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Why are tariffs such a big deal?

The car bosses, according to Reuters news agency sources, pledged additional US investment but wanted clarity on tariffs ahead.

Mr Trump urged them to shift their operations to the United States, according to a White House statement.

The tariff concession marked the first compromise on the trade issue since the president signalled, on Tuesday, that there would be no U-turns and only more tariffs after Canada said it would respond in kind.

There have been growing signs this week that corporate America is uneasy, at best, with the tariff policy against both Mexico and Canada

Those US neighbours, along with China, which is facing 20% tariffs, are the country’s three biggest trading partners.

The imposition of tariffs on all goods has been received badly by financial market investors, worried that US profitability is at risk.

One closely-watched forecast for US growth suggested that the threat of tariffs since Mr Trump’s election victory was confirmed had hammered activity and plunged the country into recession.

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There are mounting reports of boycotts against US goods in Mexico and Canada.

The nerves were publicly admitted by the boss of Jack Daniel’s maker Brown Forman, Lawson Whiting, on Wednesday when he described Canadian provinces taking American-made alcohol off shop shelves as “worse than a tariff”.

US stock market values are sharply down since the inauguration and the dollar has lost more than three cents against rivals including the euro and the pound just this week amid the tariff turmoil.

Such is the growing investor concern for the health of the US economy, the tariff implications have been partly blamed for a steep fall in oil prices.

Brent crude was trading at $68 a barrel earlier on Wednesday – its lowest level for more than three years.

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