Governmental chutzpah at a maximum: Before, insulation was a must, for the homeowner and for the planet; now, to qualify for a heat pump grant you don't need to install loft or cavity wall insulation

Press release: Boost to heat pump rollout with plans for cheaper and easier installation. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Lord Callanan, August 31 2023. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/boost-to-heat-pump-rollout-with-plans-for-cheaper-and-easier-installation

Simplified approach to qualifying for a heat pump grant could save consumers time and money, and variable grants will improve access.

Excerpts (my emphasis):

"Homeowners and small businesses could find it cheaper and easier to install heat pumps under new proposals set out today [...].

Proposed measures could mean varying the levels of grants that are made available, depending on the customer’s property type or existing fuel source.

This would make heat pump installations more affordable for even more households and small businesses, enabling them to benefit from low-cost and low-carbon heating.

Households could also save time and money through a simplified approach to qualifying for a heat pump grant by ***removing the need to install loft or cavity wall insulation first***.

These changes will help more homes and businesses move away from costly foreign fossil fuels and onto cleaner, cheaper homegrown energy [...] 

[...]

However, to make sure that new homes are zero carbon ready we plan to set the performance standard of the Future Homes Standard at a level which will effectively preclude new homes being built with fossil fuel heating."

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My comments & my emphasis:

1  It is sad that the governments put in writing with such ease that they will set performance standards "***at a level which will effectively preclude*** new homes being built with fossil fuel heating," regardless of what the citizen wishes;

It is amazing that, first, your needs or preferences play no part at all on your future, and second, this is done with so much peace of mind and comfort by the bureaucrats.

2  It seems the writer have great confidence in our inability to sum two and two, but we all realize that this plan is an admission that the costs of those systems the lawmaker favors are higher than the old systems' costs. All this gibberish of moving "away from costly foreign fossil fuels and onto cleaner, cheaper homegrown energy" is just that.

You need to add costs in the future gas boilers (via the new performance rules) & reduce costs in the newest systems because if not the citizen and the builders would not make the transition, which will make homes more expensive.

3  Also, supposedly the insulation that until now was mandatory to have had installed before qualifying for the taxpayer discounts (vouchers) was a consumer protection and and environmental must. But now, at the stroke of a pen, with no new law, the requirement is cancelled. What about those non-insulated homes that will make costlier the heat? And what the excess energy spent means to Pachamama's health?

4  In addition, what happens to the grantees that first insulated their homes? Will the taxpayer compensate them for the unnecessary costs?

5  And last... Will someone's head roll for the past lies about how cheaper it was to be to transition to the new systems?

But this is how we humans are. Even more when in power and have the others' lives and freedom at our disposal to play with them, as if we were gods.