LONDON — The Labour Party will introduce a controversial “boiler tax” if it gets into power at the next election, the shadow energy secretary said on Tuesday.

Ed Miliband, speaking at an event in London, said that Labour would “support the Clean Heat Market Mechanism” in government, referring to a controversial scheme designed to increase the up-take of household heat pumps.

He said: “On the Clean Heat Market Mechanism, we’re going to have to deal with what we inherit from the government, which is obviously starting in 2025 because certainly the election will be after April.”

Government ministers announced last week that they were scrapping the policy, which had been set to start in less than a month, until 2025. Miliband said that Labour will back the CHMM “very publicly, very clearly” if they win a general election, expected this fall.

The scheme, dubbed a “boiler tax” by its critics, sets targets for manufacturers to install clean heat pumps. Companies are fined if the target is missed, with targets ratcheted up each year.

Miliband also cautiously backed carbon capture projects for biomass producers such as Drax, known as BECCS.

“BECCS can play a role and it is in the decarbonization pathway, but it’s got to be sustainable,” he said, adding that there are “difficult questions, which need to be looked into a lot of detail.”

He used the event to warn that the government is stoking a culture war over net zero. The Conservatives are a “party slipping from climate delay into denial,” he said, arguing this will “mean higher bills, energy insecurity, fewer jobs and betrayal of future generations.”

Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho dismissed Miliband’s claims, saying that Labour will force up taxes and “does not have a plan.”

The speech was Miliband’s first major public appearance since Labour abandoned its £28 billion annual green spending pledges last month.

This article has been amended to clarify Labour’s policy position.