UK must prepare for possible war with Russia within five years, ex-British Army chief warns
General Sir Patrick Sanders, who stepped down as Chief of the General Staff last summer, told The Telegraph that a conflict with Russia by 2030 was a 'realistic possibility'.
The UK government needs to act swiftly to improve national resilience, he said.
'If Russia stops fighting in Ukraine, within months they could have the capability to launch a limited attack on a Nato member, which would require our support,' Sir Patrick told The Telegraph.
The former army chief revealed that previous conversations with government officials about building underground bunkers and command centres had stalled.
'It always came down to a conversation of it being too costly and not a high enough priority, and the threat didn't feel sufficiently imminent or serious to make it worth it,' he said.
He pointed to Finland as an example, highlighting that it has bomb shelters capable of protecting 4.5 million people, allowing it to endure missile and air attacks. Sir Patrick said this is a level of preparedness that the UK lacks.
Sir Patrick also pointed to Estonia, Poland, and the Nordic countries as governments that take a 'really proactive, serious approach' by encouraging their populations to prepare for potential attacks.
Late last year, millions of Swedes were sent a pamphlet advising them on how to prepare and cope in the event of war or another unexpected crisis, as Russia's war in Ukraine continued to escalate.
Around the same time, Finland also published fresh advice on 'preparing for incidents and crises'.
Sir Patrick warned funding for the UK's air defences is 'much lower' than necessary. He called for more investment in systems that could protect civilians from missile and drone threats.
He also criticised troop cuts that have left the British Army 'too small to survive more than the first few months of an intensive engagement,' with reserves also inadequate.
In April 2024, the army fell below its recruitment target for the first time since it was set, with personnel numbers at the lowest level since the Napoleonic wars, at around 73,000 troops.
All three branches of the UK armed forces are currently sitting below their size targets.
Sir Patrick said the recent defence budget increases were 'pretty marginal' and that the UK must wake up to the fact that 'the world has become as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than it was in the Cold War'.
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Telegraph
21 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Why the knives are coming out for government bogeyman Lord Hermer
Within hours of entering No 10, Sir Keir Starmer made an important decision. All but one of the shadow cabinet would retain the briefs they had held in opposition. The exception? Richard Hermer, the Prime Minister's long-time friend. Starmer handed him a peerage, the post of Attorney General and a brief to restore Britain's reputation abroad. Yet 12 months on, there are few appointments that have caused more controversy. Disdained on the Right as a bogeyman and increasingly disliked on the Left, his pronouncements leave many of his Labour colleagues cold. Hermer's arrival in Whitehall was greeted with a chorus of delight by his old chums in the field of human rights. Gushing tributes were reported in the liberal press. 'A career that has never been distracted by politics,' remarked Geoffrey Robertson KC, the founder of Hermer's old Doughty Street chambers (once Starmer's stomping grounds too). At the time, this political virginity was seen by some within Downing Street as a positive. Hermer was the first incumbent since 1922 not to have served in Parliament before his appointment. But now there is a growing sense his lack of nous is being regarded within the highest levels of government as a problem. His latest controversy has been to hand himself an effective 'veto' across swathes of Starmer's agenda. One of Hermer's first acts in office was to revise the Attorney General's guidance on legal risk to government lawyers. This edict assumes that every decision made by a minister will be subject to a legal challenge. Some 23 references to 'international law' were inserted, as was a new 'snitch clause', telling officials to inform him if ministers may be about to break the law. It follows his declaration at the European Court in Strasbourg that he would 'never' refuse to comply with judgments handed down there. The consequences for domestic policymaking are obvious. Ministers, including those in cabinet, accuse Hermer's changes of slowing down a slew of policy across government. This includes the Border Security Bill and the ' Hillsborough Law ' to establish a duty of candour for public officials. The former is necessary to deal with the Channel crossings emergency; the latter is a touchstone issue for some northern MPs. Lord Maurice Glasman, the founder of Blue Labour, spoke for others when he called Hermer 'an arrogant, progressive fool who thinks that law is a replacement for politics'. In foreign affairs, the Attorney General's influence is obvious too. His advice was cited in the decisions to hand sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and suspend certain arms sales to Israel. More recently, there was America's bombing of Iran, when Hermer reportedly warned that any UK involvement beyond defensive support would be illegal. That has infuriated some within the world of military and diplomatic affairs, who argue that their hands are being tied by a lawyer who does not appreciate the need for maximum flexibility in responding to rapidly moving events overseas. Having antagonised his colleagues privately, Hermer's public pronouncements are causing concern, too. Speaking to the Rusi think tank at the end of May, the Attorney General compared calls to quit the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) with the early days of Nazi Germany. He swiftly apologised, but the damage was done. Part of Hermer's problem is institutional. Ensconced in the rarefied atmosphere of the House of Lords, he is shielded from the noise and drama of the Commons. Against David Wolfson, the genteel Tory spokesman in the Lords, Hermer has held his own. But down the corridor, Robert Jenrick – the heat-seeking missile of the Tory frontbench – is determined to take him down. The Shadow Justice Secretary and his staff spend their days plotting the downfall of the man they call 'the Herminator'. For Jenrick and others, Hermer is the living embodiment of judicial overreach. It was Margaret Thatcher who distinguished between the rule of law and rule by lawyers. Hermer seems, to many Tories, to exploit the veneer of the former to enable the expansion of the latter. After 14 years of frustration in government, there is an increasingly Cromwellian attitude to Hermer's constant evocation of international law. He has featured prominently in Jenrick's prolific online content. One such video has images of the clients whom the Labour peer represented prior to entering government: Gerry Adams, Shamima Begum, five terrorists linked to al-Qaeda. It is a compelling critique which has some within the Labour party now asking if Hermer is causing more trouble than he is worth. Against this onslaught, the Attorney General has declined to come out swinging. He has given few interviews and rarely seeks to explain his past career and the work he is doing in office. 'He is so easy to attack,' boasts one Tory MP. This frustrates his allies within government. They argue that Hermer is unfairly maligned for merely trying to follow his Prime Minister's instructions. The Rusi speech, which attracted such opprobrium, is believed to have been cleared by No 10 in the usual way. Dominic Cummings and others have fulminated against the edicts of government lawyers for years; ministers have always resented colleagues who trample on their turf. Hermer is nothing new in these respects. One older MP argues that 'whomever was in that role, they'd be getting it in the neck', as a global migration crisis continues to test international law to breaking point. Yet there persists a sense amongst those who have brushed up against Hermer that he is not being as helpful as he could be. 'A blocker, not a builder' is the judgement of one aide. Another asks, despairingly: 'Does he have any instinct of self-preservation?' And for those in the Commons, fearful of re-election in four years' time, the perceived lordly attitude of Hermer and his team, indifferent to their electoral needs, is regarded as profoundly tone-deaf. In a party as tribal as Labour, there are doubts about whether he is truly one of the team. 'He's like Starmer,' says one former advisor. 'He has no politics, except the law. He is just not a Labour person.' A gaggle of young MPs, like Dan Tomlinson, Jake Richards and Mike Tapp have now taken it on themselves to publicly call for reform of the ECHR and its overinterpreted protections on torture and family life. Hermer's allies insist that he is on board with this mission, pointing to his Rusi speech. Yet those in the pro-Reform camp argue that it is Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, who is driving this change, rather than Hermer and the Attorney General's Office. Cut off from the Commons and lambasted in the press, Hermer's position looks to be an unhappy one. Cynics wonder whether Starmer – or those around him – are content to keep using the Attorney General as a lightning rod, to absorb flack that would otherwise be directed at No 10. But the Prime Minister has shown a willingness before to protect his allies, like Ed Miliband, who helped get him selected for his safe seat in 2015. The Energy Secretary had been widely tipped for the sack before – but is now thriving as of the big winners of the recent Spending Review. Starmer and Hermer are genuine friends; the former even gave the latter's toast when he took silk in 2009. Yet unlike Miliband, with his legions of eco-friendly backbenchers, Hermer lacks a power base. 'International lawyers don't have many votes,' jokes one within Labour. Isolated and attacked, after a difficult first year in office, the knives are out for Lord Hermer as he prepares for the travails of the next 12 months. Not all his colleagues think he will last the course.
Telegraph
29 minutes ago
- Telegraph
A British soldier was found dead in a Ukrainian reservoir with his hands tied. Nobody will say why
Ever since Vladimir Putin's tanks rolled into Ukraine, a patch of lawn in Kyiv's Independence Square has served as a makeshift memorial to the nation's war dead. On it are planted tens of thousands of tiny flags, each put there in honour of a fallen soldier. Amid the sea of blue and yellow are Union Jacks, Stars and Stripes and European tricolours. They honour volunteers who came to fight for Ukraine's International Legion – and who paid the ultimate price. Not everyone who is remembered there, though, died gloriously in combat. One flag that has fluttered since 2023 commemorates Jordan Chadwick, a volunteer from Burnley in Lancashire. Aged 31, he was a former member of the Scots Guards, a regiment with a fighting history stretching back nearly four centuries. Their motto, Nemo me Impune Lacessit, translates as 'No one assails me with impunity'. Tragically, however, that seems to have been exactly how Chadwick met his end. On 24 June 2023, Chadwick was found lying dead in a reservoir outside Kramatorsk, a city in eastern Ukraine that lies close to the Donbas front line. In a part of the country that is repeatedly hit by indiscriminate Russian missile fire, such grisly discoveries aren't unknown, but Chadwick's death was no random act from afar. His hands were tied behind his back, and his body had been in the water for no more than a day or two. Someone, it seemed, had taken him prisoner before killing him and trying to hide his corpse – unaware, perhaps, that the reservoir was still fished by local anglers, who found his body in a reed bed close to the shore. Who, though, would do such a thing, and why? Had he been captured by Russian troops, not best known for their respect for the Geneva Conventions? Or, as many now believe, was he killed not by enemy forces at all, but by fellow Legionnaires? Last month marked the second anniversary of Chadwick's death, since when a lot has changed in Ukraine. The much-vaunted counter-offensive that he was taking part in that summer, which the West hoped might halt Putin's invasion for good, petered out with little success. Today, it is Russian forces that are gaining ground around the Donbas, moving ever closer to Kramatorsk. Yet the circumstances of his death remain as murky as the water he was found in. 'Everyone has a different theory,' one volunteer told me. 'But those who really know don't want to talk about it.' That much I have also learnt, having spent the last three years reporting from Ukraine for The Telegraph, and also writing a book about the Legion's role in the war. During that time I have interviewed scores of Legionnaires about their experiences – some on front lines, some in bases, bars and hospital wards. Many of their stories sound like an Andy McNab novel on steroids, with battles that make Afghanistan and Iraq seem like child's play. Amid the tales of heroism, however, there is a darker, less-talked-about side to life in the Legion, which has proved to be a magnet for hotheads and ne'er-do-wells. As some volunteers only half-joke, the people they watch out for most in Ukraine are not the Russians, but fellow Legionnaires. Few are willing to talk openly about Chadwick's death, even though these are not men who take fright easily. Storming a Russian trench position is one thing. Speaking out about former comrades quite another, bringing a risk of reprisals – or, if nothing else, a break from an unofficial volunteers' code that 'what happens in Ukraine, stays in Ukraine'. It is a far cry from the lofty tones evoked by President Zelensky when he announced the Legion's creation on the third day of the invasion, a time when Russian victory seemed all but inevitable. Describing it as 'the beginning of a war against Europe, against democracy, against basic human rights', he invited anyone with military experience to join the fight. Within weeks, Kyiv officials claimed, more than 20,000 people had applied. Many saw themselves following in the footsteps of George Orwell, who fought as a Republican volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. But a significant minority were fantasists, misfits and ex-criminals, often fleeing troubled pasts. The bad apples sullied the Legionnaires' reputation in the eyes of Ukrainian commanders, who either shunned them, or used them as cannon fodder. That led to many volunteers forming their own independent fighting units –which, while technically part of the Legion, were effectively self-run militias, with little by way of formal command or discipline structures. Some also prided themselves in taking on extremely dangerous missions, at which even their Ukrainian counterparts might baulk. The 50/50 Assault Group, the unit that Chadwick joined, was a case in point. Composed of a couple of dozen mainly British and American fighters, it specialised in hardcore combat – its name a reference to the risks its members ran of death or injury. In 2023 the unit was serving in the Donbas city of Bakhmut, the fiercest battle of the entire war. When reports of Chadwick's death first emerged that summer, many Legionnaires assumed he had been taken prisoner by Russian troops. Those more familiar with the Donbas's geography, however, could rule that out. The reservoir where his body was found – a vast stretch of water nicknamed the Kramatorsk Sea – was 30 miles west of the nearest front lines, and had never been part of the combat zone. That left the possibility of a run-in with his fellow volunteers. Legionnaires are no strangers to fights sparked by battlefield mishaps, drunken arguments or personality clashes. Steroid abuse is also common in volunteer circles – one known side-effect of which are bouts of aggression known as 'roid rage'. Might a punch-up between the bruisers of 50/50 have got out of hand? Numerous Legionnaire contacts knew of ex 50/50 members who had served alongside Chadwick, but every time I asked if they would speak with me, the same answer came back: 'They don't want to talk'. It was not until four months after Chadwick's death that I first tracked one down, and even then he knew only half the story. 'Chadwick was a good soldier, but he was also quite conflictual and argumentative,' he told me. 'All I know is that there was some kind of row, which ended up with him being killed. 'The Legion then sorted it out without any proper investigation. That's the usual way here, they find it easier. The guys involved were just asked to go home, although you'd think the British embassy here in Kyiv [which helped oversee the repatriation of Chadwick's body] must have wondered what the hell was going on. A British guy gets killed, and everyone just says: 'so be it'?' The story got little coverage in Britain, by then focused on the horrors of the October 7 massacre in Israel. But in Legionnaire chat groups on Whatsapp and Signal, gossip was rife. One story had it that Chadwick had died during an SAS-style 'selection' ritual, involving waterboarding. His body had then been dumped in the reservoir, to make it look like he'd drowned. Another story was that the waterboarding had been done not as part of a ritual, but as a punishment for stealing. Both stories named the culprit as a British volunteer call-signed 'Huggs', who had previously served in the French Foreign Legion. For nearly a year, Ukrainian police declined to comment, saying only that it was a 'criminal case'. Then, during a visit to Kramatorsk in February last year, I finally spoke to a detective active in the investigation. I met Inna Lyakhova in a heavily guarded police station downtown, where her room contained a mannikin for reconstructions of homicide scenes. She said that she believed Chadwick's death was misadventure rather than murder. 'It seems there was an argument one night between him and some other soldiers at the house they were staying at,' she told me. 'He became emotional and aggressive, so he was put into plastic cuffs. His comrades told him: 'Go away, and don't come back.'' Chadwick then left the house, which Lyakhova said was in a village next to the Kramatorsk reservoir. He then appeared to have strayed into the reservoir itself, where his body was found between 24 and 48 hours later. Whether he had stumbled in accidentally or walked in deliberately was unknown. Either way, he would have been unable to swim with his hands tied behind his back, and the cause of death was drowning. Foul play had been ruled out, as police found no signs of injuries on Chadwick's body that indicated a struggle. 'We think he had gone to the water by himself, as it would have been hard to make him go there against his will,' Lyakhova said. All his 50/50 comrades had been questioned, she added. When I checked again with the Kramatorsk police just last month, there were no updates. Yet the police account raises as many questions as it answered. Most combat units, after all, are well-drilled in how to take prisoners. Would they really allow a distressed, drunken soldier to wander off into the night alone, hands tied behind his back? If he was being a nuisance, could they not have simply cuffed him to a post or a tree outside, or cuffed his ankles too? Likewise, was the absence of injuries on his body really proof that he had wandered into the lake of his own accord? What if he had been frog-marched there at gunpoint? Many volunteers I spoke to suspected a cover-up, or that at the very least Ukrainian authorities had little incentive to get to the bottom of it. The battle for Bakhmut that the 50/50 were helping with was crucial to Ukraine's war. Detaining some of them over a petty dispute that had got out of hand would remove valuable assets from the front line. 'You hear of this happening occasionally – some troops have a punch-up, someone gets killed accidentally, and it's just quietly forgotten about,' said one Legionnaire. So who really was Jordan Chadwick, and what brought him to Ukraine in the first place? Details of his life remain almost as sketchy as his death. The only public comment his family have made was a brief statement after the discovery of his body, praising his 'unwavering courage and resilience'. He is understood to have served in the Scots Guards from 2011-2015, doing guard duty outside Buckingham Palace. But like many ex-soldiers, his life appears to have unravelled after leaving the Army. In Burnley, residents of the quiet suburban street where his family home used to be spoke of a troubled young man but declined to elaborate. 'I don't want to speak ill of the dead,' one told me. By the time the Ukraine war beckoned, Chadwick was living rough, camping out in woods in Burnley's suburbs and eating in soup kitchens. One person who got to know him during that time was Pastor Mick Fleming, a reformed drug dealer who runs a local homeless charity, Church On The Street. It was visited by Prince William in January 2022, a month before the Ukraine war broke out. At the time, Chadwick was a regular drop-in at the charity – Fleming remembers him being excited about the prospect of going to fight. 'He was a lovely guy, very easy to talk to, but also a loner, quite isolated from other people,' Fleming told me back in February. 'The minute the conflict in Ukraine broke out, bingo! – he wanted to be part of it. He said it felt like his duty, as an ex-soldier, to go.' Straight away, that struck Fleming as a bad idea. Chadwick, he says, was seriously underweight from months of living rough. He smelt heavily of marijuana, and seemed to be delusional. 'I don't think anyone in their right mind would have taken him on as a soldier. He wasn't in a fit state.' Fleming's advice not to go to Ukraine went unheeded. Chadwick, he said, devoted the next few months attempting to get fit for combat, trying to use his soldier's skills to live off the land. Then, in October 2022, he headed for Ukraine. Chadwick wasn't alone in seeing the Legion as a chance to turn his life around. Other volunteers I have met went there after stints in jail, messy divorces, or simply because they were bored with life. Fleming heard nothing from Chadwick again, until the reports of his death nearly a year later. 'At first I figured he'd probably been captured by the Russians and executed, but it now looks like he fell out with someone from his own side. From my limited knowledge of him, that seems the most realistic explanation. He was a nice lad, but he couldn't cope with everyday society, with rules. That might have caused him to upset the wrong people.' Who, though, and why? It wasn't till last month that a clearer picture finally emerged, courtesy of another source, 'Dave', who only agreed to speak after months of persuasion. His accounts of dates, times and people is detailed, and corresponds with other events that I have been able to verify. In the Legionnaires' world, that is about as good as it gets. According to Dave, the incident that led to Chadwick's death was a fight he had one night with another team member, call-signed 'Bronco'. '50/50 shared two houses close to each other, with Bronco in house one and Chadwick in house two,' Dave recalled. 'Chadwick came over one night, all dressed for battle, and was trying to kill Bronco. The spark for the fight wasn't clear, but they subdued him and then tied his hands behind his back. It's not clear whether he was dead or alive when he left the house, but Huggs drove him away. His body was found in the reservoir a day or two after.' An American, a Dane, and three Britons, including 'Huggs', were apparently in the house when the fight happened. After Chadwick's body was found, they were all detained and questioned by Ukrainian police, but then released, except for Huggs. Then, in a bizarre twist, they went out for dinner together at a pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk, only for it to be hit by a Russian missile. This part of the story crosses over with mine – I was sitting in the very same restaurant myself that night. By some miracle, just as I was browsing the menu, I got a phone call from a contact who wanted to meet urgently on the other side of town. I left the restaurant, and less than half an hour later heard the explosion. It was caused by an Iskander ballistic missile – a 24ft monster big enough to carry a nuclear warhead – which killed 13 diners, including the Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina, and wounded 60. Among the other casualties were the American 50/50 volunteer, who died, and the Dane, who was seriously injured. The two Britons escaped serious injury, but left Ukraine shortly afterwards. In the wake of Chadwick's death and the pizza restaurant bombing, the 50/50 effectively ceased operation for some time. Huggs was released from questioning, and continued to fight in Ukraine with a different unit. For legal reasons, I am withholding publication of his name, but recently I tracked him down through an Instagram account. In a series of message exchanges, he confirmed that he had been 'the primary person under investigation' for a time as he was 50/50's team leader. He and the rest of the unit were then cleared, he said, after DNA and polygraph tests. Asked what had happened to Chadwick, he wrote the following: 'He [Chadwick] developed a hatred for a team member code-name 'Bronco'. After a few drinks he made ready his weapon and headed to the other team house to confront Bronco. To which he was disarmed, removed from the team house and [the] team itself. It was after that time he was discovered dead.' He said he was 'not the last person to see Chadwick alive', but declined to elaborate on how Chadwick had died, or who was responsible, adding: 'I cannot confirm what else happened as part of the investigation.' Once again, it is an explanation that raises as many questions as it answers. If, as Huggs claims, Chadwick was brandishing a weapon threateningly, it might have been legitimate to use force in self-defence. But if so, why dump his body in a reservoir several miles away? And why do Huggs' and Dave's accounts vary so much from that given by the police? Detective Lyakhova made no mention of Chadwick brandishing a weapon. She also said the house where the fight took place was right next to the reservoir, while Dave insists it was in Kramatorsk itself. In a subsequent message a few weeks after our first exchange, Huggs claimed the police investigation had moved on to focus on members of a previous unit Chadwick had served with, which he had left after an argument. Again, he did not elaborate, but said the argument had taken place after 'an op went bad outside of Bakhmut'. An inquest into Chadwick's death was due to be held in Britain 18 months ago, but was then postponed, with no new date set. A coroner, however, has no power to compel witnesses to give evidence from overseas. In which case they may have to rely largely on what Ukrainian police tell them. No Scotland Yard team has gone to Ukraine to investigate, and British diplomats may require special security clearance even to travel outside of Kyiv. 'The investigation into Jordan Chadwick's death is being led by the Ukrainian authorities,' Lancashire Police told me. Meanwhile, the war rumbles on, with Russian troops now barely 10 miles from Kramatorsk. A time may come when both the city and its police station fall into Kremlin hands, at which point the plight of a troubled young Englishman who died there two years ago will surely be forgotten. Somebody, somewhere, knows exactly how Chadwick ended up in that reservoir. But right now, the truth about what happened to him in Ukraine may well stay in Ukraine. The Mad and the Brave: The Untold Story of Ukraine's Foreign Legion, by Colin Freeman (HarperCollins, £22), is published on July 17
Telegraph
29 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Air con grants to be rolled out to homeowners - but you need a heat pump
British households could be allowed to claim £7,500 to install air conditioning heat pumps in their homes, under plans being considered by ministers. The boiler upgrade scheme, which supports homeowners to replace outdated boilers, is currently restricted to heat pumps which cannot pump cool air. If the scheme is amended to include grants for air-to-air heat pumps, homeowners could benefit from carbon efficient heating in the winter, and air conditioning in the summer, campaigners say. Labour is considering amending the scheme to allow claims for the dual heat pumps, the i newspaper reported. Britain Remade, a pro-growth campaign group, has launched a petition calling for the Government to allow all new homes to have air conditioning installed, as well as extending grants to cooling heat pumps. The organisation wrote: 'Summer's never been hotter. Electricity has never been cleaner. It's time to ditch the anti-air con rules, written for a world where summer was 25C and our electricity was coal-powered.' In London, plans from Mayor Sadiq Khan make it clear that 'passive ventilation should be prioritised' over air conditioning, which is said to be less desirable due to 'significant energy requirements'. Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said in a video on social media that: 'This is a poverty mindset that we need to get away from. Our energy policy should fit what people want to do, not the other way around. 'We have to make Britain cool again.' Electricity blackouts Air conditioning has become a hot topic following a series of heatwaves across the country in June and July, which saw temperatures reach 35.8C in Kent on July 1. The number of households using air conditioning units jumped from 3pc to 20pc between 2011 and 2022, according to a study published earlier this year. But traditional air conditioning units, which are common in hotter countries including the US and across Europe, can put extra strain on the electricity grid and cost homeowners thousands of pounds a year. The devices are expected to increase power demand by 45pc by 2050, leading to fears of electricity blackouts as power stations struggle to cope. Predicted overspend Heat pumps, which are the backbone of the Government's Net Zero policy, can cost up to £13,000 to install. The boiler upgrade scheme, which was launched in May 2022 by the previous Conservative administration, provides up to £7,500 towards their installation. In its first year, the scheme spent just a third of its allocated budget, although it is predicted to overspend in this tax year. Nearly £2bn has been budgeted for the scheme until March 2028. But despite a Government target of 600,000 installations a year, since the beginning of 2024 just 365,397 have been installed, according to the MCS Foundation. Earlier this week, The Telegraph reported that the Government's chief new-zero advisor had admitted that it was unclear whether the green devices saved households money. A meeting chaired by Professor Dame Angela McLean found it was 'not currently clear' if heat pumps were cheaper to run than a traditional gas boiler. The report, published on Wednesday, said heat pumps represented 'a major financial decision and long-term commitment,' adding 'it is not currently clear that heat pumps will save people money'.
