Rishi Sunak confirms he’s delaying ban on new petrol and diesel cars and boosts boiler upgrade scheme
Rishi Sunak has confirmed he will be easing a series of green policies under a “new approach” designed to protect “hard-pressed British families” from “unacceptable costs”.
Delivering a speech from Downing Street, he said he is still committed to reaching net zero by 2050, but the transition can be done in a “fairer and better way”.
Announcing a raft of U-turns, the prime minister confirmed he will delay a ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by five years and a weakening of targets to phase out gas boilers.
He also said a “worrying set of proposals” that had emerged during debates on net zero would be scrapped, including:
- For government to interfere in how many passengers you can have in your car
- To force you to have seven different bins in your home
- To make you change your diet and harm British farmers by taxing meat
- To create new taxes to discourage flying or going on holiday
“Our destiny can be of our own choosing,” Mr Sunak said – while calling for politicians to be “honest” about the costs of green policies on families.
Politics live: Rishi Sunak gives speech from Downing Street
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‘No rights to impose costs on people’
The measures have faced criticism from across the political spectrum as well as from businesses, environmental groups and even former US vice president Al Gore.
Labour accused the prime minister of “dancing to the tune” of net zero-sceptic Tories and said the plans would actually add more costs to households while damaging investor confidence.
Explaining the government’s decision to delay the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars – currently due in 2030 – by five years, Mr Sunak said this would give businesses “more time to prepare”.
He also said people would still be allowed to buy secondhand diesel and petrol cars after that date and this would align the UK’s approach with countries across Europe, Canada and many US states.
In weakening the plan to phase out gas boilers from 2035, Mr Sunak said households would “never” be forced to “rip-out their existing boiler and replace it with a heat pump”.
This will only be required when people are due to change their boiler anyway and there will be an exception for households for whom that will be the hardest.
Mr Sunak also announced an increase to the boiler upgrade scheme, saying rather than banning boilers “before people can afford the alternative” the government is going to “support them to make the switch” to heat pumps.
He said: “The boiler upgrade scheme which gives people cash grants to upgrade their boiler will be increased by 50% to seven and a half thousand pounds.
“There are no strings attached. The money will never need to be repaid.”
Landlord efficiency targets scrapped
Mr Sunak has also scrapped plans to force landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties, saying some property owners would have been forced to “make expensive upgrades” within two years and that would inevitably impact renters.
“You could be looking at a bill of £8,000, and even if you’re only renting, you’re more than likely to see some of that passed on in higher rents,” he said.
“That’s just wrong, so those plans will be scrapped.”
Despite the “new approach”, the prime minister insisted the UK would meet its international obligations on climate change – such as those made under the Paris Climate Accords.
He went on to defend the UK’s record, arguing the country is “so far ahead” of other countries in the world when it comes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
PM wants to portray himself as a leader prepared to take unpopular decisions his predecessors weren’t
For all the rhetoric about democracy and real political change – today’s speech was fundamentally about the Prime Minister giving into the concerns of many in his party about the costs of the green policies set out by Boris Johnson’s government.
Labour see these announcements as projecting fundamental political weakness: 20 points behind in the polls and struggling to meet the majority of his five pledges, Rishi Sunak urgently needs to find a way to connect with voters struggling during the cost of living crisis. He’s keen to win over the right wing Tory backbenchers concerned about the electoral danger of expensive environmental policies like the ULEZ expansion which was widely seen to have cost Labour the Uxbridge by election.
It’s an impression underlined by the hurried way the announcement was made – less than 24 hours after these controversial change in tack was leaked to the media, prompting a huge backlash from business and many in his own party. Making such a key speech in the Downing Street media briefing room – rather than to Parliament, also looks chaotic.
It’s sent the Speaker into a fury, earning a humiliating rebuke. “Ministers are answerable to MPs – we do not have a presidential system here,” Sir Lindsey Hoyle thundered. For a man like Mr Sunak, who prides himself on being a sensible pragmatist – the complete opposite to the cavalier Boris Johnson – it’s surely a criticism that will sting, though it’s hardly unexpected.
The irony is that Rishi Sunak opened his speech by pledging to put the long term interests of the country before the short term political needs of the moment. Climate campaigners, for whom nothing could be more urgent, will surely scoff at this.
But in the framing of his speech – as the first of a series of long term policy decisions in a ‘new kind of politics’ – the Prime Minister and his team are keen to burnish his reputation as a pragmatic reformer, prepared to take the kind of unpopular decisions his predecessors weren’t. Certainly many in his party have been calling for a change in approach, a new bolder strategy to set out a greater distance with Labour – and it seems he has been listening.
The PM’s key arguments – that government shouldn’t impose unnecessary or heavy handed costs on hard working people, and relying on the market to drive change – are a return to classic Conservatism.
But his core argument that the need for action is less urgent than we have previously been led to believe, because of the UK’s success in meeting existing climate targets – is not one which will sit easily with green minded MPs.
And while he spent a key part of the speech concentrating on the importance of green technological innovation, and celebrating the power of the market in delivering progress – that will surely stick in the throat of companies who’ve spent billions getting ready to meet targets which have now been delayed. Many in his own party are concerned about the reputational damage to the UK as a centre of business investment.
He’s well aware that today’s message will be deeply unpopular with some – but promised to ‘meet any resistance’. Many Tory MPs will welcome that more bullish approach; but his promise to deliver ‘pragmatism and not ideology’ is pure Sunak.
The question now is in the hands of voters – do they buy into this argument that the country can reach Net Zero by 2050 without many of the policies designed to get there? Or in the midst of the cost of living crisis – will they be delighted to avoid the cost of paying for them?
‘Act of weakness’
Among the critics, Ed Miliband, Labour’s Shadow Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, said: “Today is an act of weakness from a desperate, directionless prime minister, dancing to the tune of a small minority of his party. Liz Truss crashed the economy and Rishi Sunak is trashing our economic future.
“Having delivered the worst cost of living crisis in generations, the prime minister today loads more costs onto the British people.”
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “This is a prime minister who simply doesn’t understand and cannot grasp for Britain the opportunities for jobs and our economy of driving forward with action on clean energy.”
There was also criticism from the car industry and energy industry.
Chis Norbury, the chief executive of the E.ON energy firm, said it was a “false argument” that green policies can only come at a cost, arguing they deliver affordable energy while boosting jobs.
He said companies wanting to invest in the UK need “long-term certainty” while communities now risk being condemned to “many more years of living in cold and draughty homes that are expensive to heat”.
Ford cars UK chairwoman Lisa Brankin said: “Our business needs three things from the UK Government: ambition, commitment and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three.”
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Rishi Sunak is asked if his net zero policy climbdowns are a result of him panicking about the next election.
Tory MPs split
The announcement comes after last night’s leak of the plans sparked a major Tory backlash and even a threat of a no confidence letter.
Mr Sunak was due to give the speech later this week but brought it forward following a hastily arranged cabinet meeting this morning.
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle reacted furiously to the announcement not being made to MPs, who are on recess for conferences, expressing his views “in the strongest terms” in a letter to Mr Sunak.
Tory MPs are split, with some seeing the row back on costly green policies as a vote winner and others fearing the impact it will have on business and the climate.
Senior figures who have backed the prime minister include his predecessor Liz Truss, who said: “I welcome the delay on banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars as well as the delay on the ban on oil and gas boilers. This is particularly important for rural areas.”
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However Boris Johnson, who Ms Truss briefly took over from, said the row back would cause uncertainty for businesses, adding: “We cannot afford to falter now or in any way lose our ambition for this country.”
Mr Johnson’s ally and prominent Tory environmentalist Lord Zac Goldsmith went as far as to demand a general election over the “economically and ecologically illiterate decision”.
The UK’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050 was written into law in 2019.
Climate scientists say urgent cuts are needed to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions if we are to stop temperatures rising to a potentially catastrophic extent.
In the summer, scientists warned extreme heat events were rapidly on the rise due to climate change.
Parents who are entitled to hours of free childcare should not have to pay mandatory extra charges to secure their nursery place, the government has said.
Updated guidance from the Department for Education states that while nurseries are entitled to ask parents to pay for extras – including meals, snacks, nappies or sun cream – these charges must be voluntary rather than mandatory.
The guidance, which comes amid concerns that parents have faced high additional charges on top of the funded hours, also states that local councils should intervene if a childcare provider seeks to make additional charges a condition for parents accessing their hours.
Since September last year, parents and carers with children aged nine months and older have been entitled to 15 hours of government-funded childcare a week, rising to 30 hours for three to four year-olds.
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From this September, the 30 hours of care will be made available to all families – a rollout that was first introduced under the previous Conservative government.
However, there have been concerns that in order to subsidise shortfalls in funding, nurseries have charged parents extra for essentials that would normally have been included in fees.
Under the new guidance, nurseries will be now obliged to clearly set out any additional costs parents will have to pay, including on their websites.
It says invoices should be itemised so parents can see a breakdown of the free entitlement hours, additional private paid hours and all the additional charges.
‘Fundamental financial challenges facing the sector’
Representatives of childcare providers welcomed the announcement but pointed out the financial stress that many nurseries were under.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: “While we fully agree that families should be able to access early entitlement hours without incurring additional costs, in reality, years of underfunding have made it impossible for the vast majority of settings to keep their doors open without relying on some form of additional fees or charges.
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Free childcare in England
“As such, while it is absolutely right that providers should be transparent with parents on any optional additional fees, today’s guidance does absolutely nothing to address – or even acknowledge – the fundamental financial challenges facing the sector.”
He added: “Given that from September, government will control the price of around 80% of early years provision, it has never been more important for that funding to genuinely reflect the true cost of delivering places.
“And yet we know in many areas, this year’s rate increases won’t come close to mitigating the impact April’s National Insurance and wage rises, meaning that costs for both providers and families are likely to spiral.”
In last year’s budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the amount businesses will pay on their employees’ national insurance contributions will increase from 13.8% to 15% from April this year.
She also lowered the current £9,100 threshold employers start paying national insurance on employees’ earnings to £5,000, in what she called a “difficult choice” to make.
Last month a survey from the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) found that cost increases from April will force nurseries to raise fees by an average of 10%.
The survey, covering nurseries in England, revealed that staffing costs will increase by an average of 15%, with respondents saying that more than half of the increase was due to the national insurance decision in the budget.
Purnima Tanuku CBE, chief executive of the NDNA, said “taking away the flexibility for providers around charges could seriously threaten sustainability”.
“The funding government pays to providers has never been about paying for meals, snacks or consumables, it is to provide early education and care,” she said.
“Childcare places have historically been underfunded with the gap widening year on year.
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Parents ‘frustrated’ over rising childcare demand
“From April, the operating costs for the average nursery will go up by around £47,000 once statutory minimum wages and changes to national insurance contributions are implemented. NIC changes have not been factored into the latest funding rates, further widening the underfunding gap.”
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The Department for Education said its offer to parents meant they could save up to £7,500 on average when using the full 30 hours a week of government-funded childcare support, compared to if they were paying for it themselves.
In December, the government also announced that a £75m expansion grant would be distributed to nurseries and childminders to help increase places ahead of the full rollout of funded childcare.
Local authority allocations for the expansion grant will be confirmed before the end of February. Some of the largest areas could be provided with funding of up to £2.1m.
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Nigel Farage has given up sole control of Reform UK, with the party’s members now being “handed over ownership” following a vote last year, according to its chairman.
The party, led by Mr Farage, was previously controlled by the Clacton MP as he held a majority of shares in the company.
According to the party’s new constitution, a board will instead be set up that will lead and direct the party, with members voting in an advisory manner on policies at the annual conference.
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Members also have the power to call an “extraordinary general meeting”, and launch no-confidence motions in the party leader.
In a statement, Reform chairman Zia Yusuf said: “We are pleased to announce that, as promised, Nigel Farage has handed over ownership of Reform UK to its members.
“Reform UK is now a non-profit, with no shareholders, limited by guarantee.
“We are assembling the governing board, in line with the constitution.
“This was an important step in professionalising the party.
“We will soon have more exciting announcements about Reform UK as we prepare for government.”
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Documents filed with Companies House show that all shareholders in Reform UK Party Limited have given up their shares and control of the organisation.
Instead, a limited company called Reform 2025 Ltd is listed as being in control of the party.
Reform 2025 Ltd has two directors – Mr Farage and Mr Yusuf – but no shareholders or persons with significant control.
It is understood this is because the membership is said to be in control.
This appears to put it in a similar structure to the Labour Party, while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats appear to have controlling leaders or chairs.
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According to the party’s website, Reform UK have more than 211,000 members – close to double the Conservative membership.
Mr Farage says he wants to overtake Labour, which has around 309,000 members.
The party won five seats at the last general election off the back of 4.1 million votes. For comparison, the Liberal Democrats won 72 seats off the back of 3.5 million votes.
This discrepancy is largely down to seats votes are concentrated in.
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Recent polling has shown that Reform are seen as stronger than Labour on a range of topics among voters, including trustworthiness, strength, and “clear sense of purpose”.
Earlier in February, the party also topped a voter intention poll for the first time.
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