The Home Builders Federation said gas boilers were cheaper and consumers liked them

Gas boilers and cookers should be banned in new homes within six years to meet Britain’s legally binding emissions targets, the government’s climate change advisory body recommends today.

Developers must be forbidden from connecting homes to the gas grid and should instead be forced to install low-carbon heating systems, according to a report by the Committee on Climate Change. The move would mean that newly built homes would not be able to have gas stoves and would need to be fitted with alternatives such as induction hobs.

The Home Builders Federation condemned the proposal, saying that it would make houses harder to sell because gas boilers were cheaper and consumers liked them.

The low-carbon heating systems, such as air source heat pumps combined with extra