In the context it was used, it made its point. It summed up, perfectly, the view of the establishment at the time who could see things weren’t going as planned but chose to ignore the facts and carry on regardless.

I’m afraid to say that is happening right now in our industry. I don’t say this with any degree of satisfaction or pleasure but to voice a warning that continuing to follow the current path will only see the UK needlessly spend billions of £s while still failing to achieve the target it has set itself. And in doing so, lose the opportunity to use the facts to actually change course and really deliver the net zero outcome we want in our homes.

The facts are, unless something changes drastically, the heat pump installation target for the UK will be missed, by miles. At the current rate of installations, retrofitting UK homes will take over 500 years. We can continue subsidising the programme, another £2.5 billion over the next few years, but the target is out of reach. We can take a pig-headed view of these facts or face up to them. I know some people won’t want to hear this message but it needs to be said.

This year we will retrofit with a heat pump around 45,000 homes from a total of 25 million.  To get anywhere near the target will require the government to do what it promised not to and regulate to ban the sale of gas and oil boilers. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, telling households to spend £13,500 for a heat pump compared to £2,500 for a replacement boiler is electoral suicide. All rather blunt I know and I’m sorry if that offends but there is a moral obligation to spell out what the facts tell us.

“If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through” is not a prescription of modern-day policy making.

[1] General Melchett is fictional character played by Stephen Fry in the TV series Blackadder Goes Forth.