Miliband's heat-pump plans under threat from Reeves's cuts
Ed Miliband could be forced to reduce funding for his flagship heat-pumps policy under spending cuts planned by Rachel Reeves.
The Energy Secretary's department is facing significant cuts to fill an estimated £30 billion black hole in Britain's public finances.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is one of several 'unprotected' departments and may have to find billions of pounds of savings from its policy areas.
Officials are reportedly looking for savings among Labour's 'warm homes' policies, which include funding for home insulation.
The Telegraph understands another policy within the same net zero portfolio is the flagship heat-pump subsidy, which provides up to £7,500 to homeowners looking to install a ground or air source heat pump.
Cutting heat-pump funding would mark the latest blow to Mr Miliband, who has already seen several government net zero initiatives rolled back amid concerns they were acting as a brake on growth.
After Donald Trump imposed blanket tariffs of 25 per cent on car imports – since lowered to 10pc – Sir Keir Starmer announced that planned electric vehicle restrictions would not apply to some smaller manufacturers, in a concession to the British luxury automotive industry.
The fight for net zero has been a source of contention within Labour in recent months, coming to a head last month when Sir Tony Blair warned Sir Keir that his current green policies were 'doomed to fail'.
Mr Miliband hit back at the former prime minister this week, accusing him of having a 'defeatist' attitude towards net zero.
The Energy Secretary increased the budget for heat-pump installations after taking office last year by adding £55 million to last year's spending plans left by the previous government and doubling the size of the pot to £295 million for this year.
Demand for the grants has grown each year after the Conservatives increased the amount that each homeowner can claim.
Despite admitting that heat pumps may never be cheaper than gas boilers, Mr Miliband has supported further expansion of the policy and is pushing for fossil-fuel-powered heating to be stripped from all new-build properties before 2027.
Labour's manifesto promised an extra £6.6 billion in net zero investment for private homes, for 'insulation and other improvements such as solar panels, batteries and low carbon heating to cut bills'.
However, both the heat-pump scheme and home insulation upgrades could be reduced if Ms Reeves follows through with double-digit cuts to the DESNZ budget in her June 11 spending review.
It has also been reported that a planned £8.3 billion cash injection for the state-owned GB Energy company over the course of the parliament could be reduced.
Health and defence priorities
It is understood that no final decisions have been taken, and that Mr Miliband will be left to decide how to allocate the settlement he receives from the Treasury.
The review will set departmental budgets for day-to-day spending for the next three years, and capital investment budgets for the next five years.
Downing Street has been clear that it will prioritise the budgets of the NHS and the Ministry of Defence, which is set to receive an uplift to at least 2.7 per cent of GDP by the end of the parliament.
But Ms Reeves is facing a crisis in the public finances, with the Treasury falling about £30 billion short of the money required to run the Government at current levels, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
Speaking on a podcast released on Friday, Mr Miliband attacked Sir Tony for adopting a 'defeatist' attitude on tackling climate change.
In a significant intervention last month, the former prime minister said that net zero was 'doomed to fail' and that it was wrong that people were 'being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal'.
The comments prompted fury inside Downing Street and Sir Tony later appeared to back down, saying Sir Keir Starmer's net zero approach was 'the right one'.
Mr Miliband told The Rest is Politics podcast: 'The report itself, he wrote a foreword to the report, is perfectly unobjectionable... but what is disappointing about Tony's foreword, and I have huge respect for Tony, is I think it is incredibly defeatist, which is not what Tony is. It is really defeatist.'
Separately on Friday, the head of the Government's official environmental advisory body said he was 'concerned' over the budget for nature restoration ahead of the spending review.
Tony Juniper, chairman of Natural England, said the 'very tight' spending settlement expected in light of current economic stresses will pose 'big challenges' for those working to reverse the country's decline in nature.
He said: 'I am concerned about the budget side in particular because the job that we need to do is very significant.
'We will work within the envelope that we have, recognising the country does face very serious economic stresses at the moment,' he said.
'But it does concern me naturally in terms of the scale of the task ahead and what we need to do.'
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