North Sea oil companies have “more money than they know what to do with” and should be subject to a windfall tax, Keir Starmer has demanded.
The Labour leader called on Boris Johnson to tax oil giants like Shell and BP and stop “protecting energy profits not working people”.
At Prime Minister’s Questions Starmer said that consumers were facing soaring energy bills and that Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s repayable loans plan was a disaster in the making.
He said: “The typical energy bill is going up by £700 next month and that’s because of pressures before Russia invaded Ukraine. The Chancellor’s solution: a forced £200 loan for every household paid back in mandatory instalments over five years."
“The big gamble behind that policy was that energy costs would drop quickly after a short spike. That bet now looks certain to fail."
Johnson claimed that a windfall tax would just lead to energy companies putting prices up even more and would discourage them from turning away from hydrocarbons.
“We’ll see how long that position lasts,” Starmer responded.
Starmer branded the Government’s support on energy bills a “total mess”.
He said: “I don’t think the Prime Minister understands the mess he’s in. Working families are facing a £700 spike in April, they won’t even receive their £200 loan from the Chancellor until October.
“The wholesale price of oil and gas is now ballooning, so by October when the loan finally comes in household bills are set to shoot up by another £1,000. It’s a total mess, so I ask again, when is the Prime Minister going to force the Chancellor to U-turn?”
Boris Johnson replied: “If he’s asking for the Chancellor to U-turn on the support that we’re giving to families and households I think that he is absolutely out of his mind.”
Johnson said that under Labour nuclear power fell from producing about 25 per cent of UK energy needs to about ten per cent and said the government could support households with energy costs ”because it has the fastest growth in the G7”.
Starmer added: “Let me try and and help the Prime Minister by coming at it from a different angle. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, North Sea oil and gas companies were making bumper profits. BP made £9.5 billion, Shell made £14 billion.”
“In their own words, more money than they know what to do with. Since then the international price of oil and gas has skyrocketed and so will their profits. When will the Prime Minister admit he has got this badly wrong, put a windfall tax on those super profits and use the money to cut household energy bills?”
Boris Johnson replied: “The net result of that would simply be to see the oil companies put their prices up yet higher.”
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