British Gas fails to pass on £400 boiler grants to customers

Published 06th Jan 2010

British Gas is profiting from the Government’s boiler scrappage scheme by failing to pass on the full value of the grants. The company is refusing to offer its usual discounts to customers who apply for a £400 grant.

Some homes could be better off ignoring the scheme and negotiating a discount with an installation company.

The Prime Minister announced the scrappage scheme yesterday at the company’s training centre for boiler engineers in Kent. He claimed that the scheme could be worth up to £800 for households taking part because some companies, including British Gas, had agreed to match the £400 offered by the Government. Mr Brown did not mention that British Gas operates an unsubsidised scheme under which all customers could get a £752 discount on a new boiler This offer comprises £300 off the price of the boiler, radiator controls worth £248 and free servicing and repairs for a year worth £204.

A customer adviser at British Gas’s call centre said anyone applying for a scrappage grant would not be eligible for these discounts: “It’s much of a muchness whether you go for the scrappage grant or the savings we already offer. But you can’t get both.”

People aged over 60 might get a much larger discount under the Warm Front subsidy scheme than if they apply for the scrappage scheme. British Gas offers a discount of £1,052 for over-60s under Warm Front but only £800 under the scrappage scheme.

Mr Brown claimed that up to 125,000 households in England would benefit from the scrappage scheme, saving £200 to £235 a year on energy bills. The Department of Energy and Climate Change said the scheme, costing £50 million, would “help sustain work for 130,000 boiler installers and over 25 UK-based boiler manufacturers”.

The scrappage scheme is open to the 3.5 million homes with inefficient “G” rated boilers with a permanent pilot light. Most gas boilers more than 15 years old will qualify, as will oil-fired boilers more than 25 years old.

The Energy Saving Trust is advising home owners on whether their boilers qualify. But the public funds allocated will cover only one in 28 of the homes with G rated boilers. Consumer Focus said: “The [scrappage] scheme will help those on low incomes who do not qualify for the Warm Front scheme, but the budget limits the number of people it will help.

“The amount people will save depends on the cost of installing a new boiler, which can vary considerably. Nevertheless, “G” rated boilers are so inefficient that most people installing a new system should see their gas bills fall dramatically.”

British Gas denied failing to pass on the full benefit of the £400 scrappage grant but their spokeswoman admitted that some customers could save almost as much by taking up existing unsubsidised discount deals. “It’s about choosing what’s right for you,” she said.

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