Britain's £7,500 heat pump grant is about to shrink. More homes could end up with one

Ministers are reported to want hundreds of millions back from the scheme. This is what the cut is likely to mean, who has had the money so far, and who sells the heat pump when the grant covers less.

The Guardian reported yesterday morning that ministers are preparing to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the heat pump grant scheme to help pay for defence. Treasury officials, it says, have long seen the grant as a subsidy used mainly by middle-class households.

On the government's own figures, they have a point. More than half the households that received a heat pump grant in the scheme's first two years lived in a home with four or more bedrooms. Among all households in England and Wales the figure is one in five.