Rishi Sunak scraps green policy to force landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties

Plans for the mandatory EPC upgrade to 'C' is scrapped among changes to the government's green commitments.

Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has delivered a speech in which he set out changes to the government's green commitments. This included the scrapping of policies to force landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties and delaying the ban on installing oil and LPG boilers which was due to start in 2026.

Landlords and homeowners will now not be forced to upgrade properties to a minimum EPC rating of 'C' and above, but instead will be 'encouraged' to make properties greener where they can.

The Government will also increase the Boiler Upgrade Grant by 50% to £7,500 to help households who want to replace their gas boilers with a low-carbon alternative like a heat pump.

There is also a delay to the proposed ban on installing oil and LPG boilers, and new coal heating, for off-gas-grid homes to 2035, instead of phasing them out from 2026. Many of these homes are not suitable for heat pumps, so this ensures homeowners are not having to spend around £10-15,000 on upgrading their homes in just three years’ time.

There is also an exemption to the phase out of fossil fuel boilers, including gas, in 2035, so that households who will most struggle to make the switch to heat pumps or other low-carbon alternatives won’t have to do so. This is expected to cover about a fifth of homes, including off-gas-grid homes - those that will need expensive retrofitting or a very large electricity connection.

These changes are of most interest to property owners and have been introduced alongside more headline-grabbing changes as delaying the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by five years, from 2030 to 2035.

Despite the changes and claims of a U-turn, the prime minister insisted that he was committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 - this is where a country does not add any additional greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

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