Amid the usual government publication fanfare and with a £15 billion price tag we were treated to 149 pages of action, plans, delivery and all-round good news. What I took away most of all, despite all the bluster involved in such publications, was a more down-to-earth, even realistic outlook.

Back in 2021, when Boris Johnson published his Heat and Buildings Strategy, it promised a 2035 gas boiler ban; 600,000 heat pumps a year fitted by 2028, with a target of 1.7 million a year by 2035. Of this number, 200,000 were to be installed in new builds. Wildly ambitious, even reckless in its intention, as industry reeled from what was expected of it. Despite any misgivings we may have over some of the detail, it would by churlish not to welcome the Warm Homes Plan and its greater realism over changes to home heating. Gone are threats of banning boilers from sale in 2035 and the new heat pump targets are a nod to the challenges faced in the real world, still gripped by the cost-of-living crisis.

Drilling down on these numbers, there has been a major reassessment of demand, particularly in the retrofit market. Close to 25 million homes currently use gas or oil for their heating and hot water, so the retrofit market is where the action is.

Using an AI tool, I compared the two strategies (conveniently they didn’t use comparable dates). Excluding new build, Boris Johnson promised 400,000 heat pumps by 2028, which would have increased to 828,600 by 2030. Ed Miliband is promising 250,000 retrofit heat pumps by 2030, a 70 per cent reduction. It will take 100 years to convert all 25 million homes at that rate. It is a massive change, significant for appliance manufacturers and for the future of gas networks too.

It suggests over one million boilers still being replaced in homes by 2030. Yes, more realistic I feel and it makes for a better plan for it.