This week Britain’s largest trade union and Britain’s largest energy supplier have signed a landmark workforce recognition agreement. A deal that reinforces Octopus as the country’s leading clean energy supplier and Unison as our leading clean energy union.

Octopus will drive forward the Labour government’s clean power agenda, creating the green collar jobs of the future. As the Unison General Secretary Andrea Egan put it so well “climate change threatens us all, but it also presents an opportunity to create millions of good, unionised, green jobs”. As we look ahead to that cleaner future it will also be a more secure one, by reducing our reliance on gas we weaken the power dictators have over us.

Octopus, like Unison, is committed to fighting for as many secure, unionised clean energy jobs as possible here in the UK. 

In just a few days time the Chancellor, Rt Hon John Healey MP, will deliver his first budget as Chancellor. As with every budget the media is full of speculation about what it will contain.

Opponents of the government’s plans for clean power have been trying to reduce support for the growing heat pump industry by calling for cutting the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS). If this happens this government would be repeating the same mistakes made by previous administrations – removing support for a sector before it becomes self-sustaining and mature, driving jobs and manufacturing abroad.

Earlier this week Octopus was proud to add its name, alongside Unison, to a letter from over 100 businesses, industry bodies and charities warning about the implications of removing this support.

Right now, people wanting to replace their boiler with a heat pump can apply for support from the BUS, a key part of the government Warm Homes plan. 74 percent of people moving to a heat pump say that it’s the availability of the BUS grant that led them to leave gas or oil behind. And people who have made the switch are benefiting, live Octopus data shows 99.6 percent of households are saving – c.£230 a year compared to gas and £650 compared to oil/LPG. Nothing else is making that big a difference to customers.

So it’s important the Prime Minister and Chancellor ignore some of the nonsense out there about heat pumps and focus on the longer term. They can – and must – cut the red tape to make it as easy to install a heat pump as a gas boiler, helping to reduce costs further. And they should protect the BUS as that’s the catalyst building a new industry in the UK. It’s exciting and effective with huge potential to reduce household energy costs, create jobs and provide more secure power. 

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