Earlier this year, reports suggested that people would be forced to rip out functioning gas boilers and replace them with expensive heat pumps. Instead, the heat and building strategy was launched last week with the promise of £5,000 grants to replace fossil fuel boilers with heat pumps.

And, without a hint of compulsion, Boris Johnson said: “The greenshirts of the boiler police are not going to kick in your door with their sandal-clad feet and seize, at carrot-point, your trusty old combi.”

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