"A recent report...puts a very positive spin on hydrogen, but neglects to mention any other low-carbon alternatives. 

The sponsors were businesses with a vested interest in promoting hydrogen: fossil fuel producers who know that for the foreseeable future, hydrogen will be fossil derived. But is the vested interest of business best for UK consumers?"

Tom, thank you - this can't be said enough.

Hydrogen isn't best for consumers nor the environment, and as long as sales of fossil fuel continue to be the driving force behind energy policy, fighting climate change is a lost cause.

As Germany, the NL, France, Australia et al push on with hydrogen strategies there are bound to be winners and losers.  Some funding will likely be diverted from fossils, some from nuclear - and some from other renewables, Perhaps the most likely candidate there being heat pumps which have never broken through in the UK.  

Pretty good article.  One big omission is district heat networks as alternatives to hydrogen for heating in homes and businesses.   Heat networks can use waste heat from thermal power generation, thus implementing combined-heat-and-power.  Alternatively, they can use industrial sized heat pumps, where electricity is plentiful, or they can use geothermal energy. They can also use insulated tanks for low cost energy storage to smooth demand peaks and better harness off-peak energy supply.

The alternative which was most prominent in the article was electric heat pumps, which are quite efficient, delivering around 3 Watts of heat from each Watt of electricity consumed.  Missing from the discussion of heat pumps was the fact that most of the annual heating consumption occurs during the winter demand peak, a time when older, less efficient, dirtier power plants are brought on-line; the heat pumps run on dirtier than average electricity.  That extra demand also results in more waste heat being generated, which could be beneficially used, if a heat network were available.

Heat networks and heat pumps are really complementary, in that heat networks are most affordable in urban and denser sub-urban settings, and heat pumps work fine in rural areas.

Heat networks are like fossil fuel networks and hydrogen networks in that they involve large infrastructure.  The proposed transition to hydrogen is always most attractive to companies that sell fossil gas, but of the three, the heat network works best with sustainable energy, and provides the least opportunity for fossil fuel to maintain dominance.