Invest to save the planet and the economy

Over the past fortnight, two major storms have caused billions of pounds of damage across the UK, with Looe once again experiencing serious flooding. Homes and businesses have been damaged and vehicles have been destroyed. And at a time of public concern about food security and water pollution, these storms have ruined crops and washed fertilisers, pesticides and topsoil into our rivers.

Winter storms are nothing new, but climate change is making them more frequent and more powerful. So as well as building flood defences, we urgently need to cut our carbon emissions, yet Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is turning the country in the opposite direction. He says we should slow down the net zero transition because families and businesses are struggling with the cost of living and the Government is struggling to fund an overstretched NHS. This shows a complete failure to understand the bigger picture: Leaving aside the fact that failing to tackle climate change will lead to catastrophic costs for both nature and humanity, reducing the amount we spend on fossil fuels will be a massive boost for our economy, whilst upgrading our homes will create thousands of jobs. Perhaps most importantly of all, ensuring that everyone has a warm, dry home will drastically reduce the number of people developing chronic health conditions which have to be treated by the NHS.

Last month I took advantage of the Government's "boiler upgrade scheme" to replace my old gas boiler with an air source heat pump. I could only afford to do this because the grant was recently increased from £5,000 to £7,500, but it was still twice as expensive as simply getting a like-for-like replacement gas boiler. If we are to have a just transition, we need to ensure that everyone can afford this energy saving kit, but many homes will need larger radiators, fatter pipes or better insulation which the current grant simply isn't big enough to cover.

Some people believe that "hydrogen-ready" boilers are the easy option. Simply replace your fossil gas boiler with a new model which will continue burning fossil gas until green hydrogen flows to every home. But when something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The National Infrastructure Commission recently concluded that hydrogen will never be viable for use in home boilers.

So it's time for the Government to abandon their fantasy of "hydrogen ready" boilers. The Liberal Democrats would help every household with the full cost of upgrading their radiators and insulation by giving grants to those on low incomes and a combination of low-interest loans and tax incentives for everyone else. Such a policy would not only be good for the planet, but good for the cost of living, good for the Cornish economy and even good for our health.