Potential cuts to Warm Homes Plan and change in planning restrictions around heat pumps: comment

"Changing planning restrictions around heat pumps [1] is long overdue, meaning more people may switch to electric heat pumps, which will increasingly run off British wind and solar while gas boilers will be fuelled more and more with gas imported from abroad as the North Sea continues its inevitable decline. Anyone who argues against heat pumps is arguing against energy independence. 

"However, fuel poverty and poverty charities are concerned about suggestions the Warm Homes Plan is being slashed, perhaps to upgrading just 300,000 homes [2] which is a 98% fall from the Government's original pledge of 19 million [3]. Without proper insulation homes will continue to be leaky, inflating bills that remain well above pre-crisis levels, and keeping us more reliant on gas and therefore vulnerable to price spikes on international markets that foreign actors like Putin can meddle in. We might be making progress on heat pumps, but it makes no sense to row back on upgrading homes when that's one way to lower bills and achieve energy security."