Extract from Business
Questions
(Bristol West)
(Lab):...So, the Government dropped a Bill on Monday, did not
turn up on Tuesday, did something else on Wednesday and here they
are planless on Thursday. Labour has been calling for action on
energy bills for months. We could have passed legislation to
freeze the energy price cap by now. Throughout the leadership
campaign the Prime Minister consistently said she is against
windfall taxes. What is it about this former Shell employee,
the new Prime Minister, that means she is so determined to
protect the £170 billion of excess oil and gas profits? She must
now choose whose side she is on. Labour’s plan, backed by the
country, is fully funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas
companies. The Prime Minister is making working people pay. We
have a new Prime Minister but the same story. Only Labour can
tackle the Tory cost of living crisis, get money back into
people’s pockets and deliver a fresh start for Britain...
Extracts from Commons
debate on Energy costs
(Slough)
(Lab):...The Government appear to have decided to deal with this
energy crisis on the backs of ordinary hard-working Brits, and to
load huge levels of debt on to future generations, rather than
properly taxing the billions of pounds of excess profits of the
energy companies. Why are the Government on the side of big
corporate rather than ordinary hard-working Brits? Is it because
the Prime Minister is a former employee of Shell and
is therefore on the side of oil and gas companies instead of
protecting ordinary working British people?
(Rhondda) (Lab): Is not
the bigger point that there is a simple choice about how to pay
for this? It either all goes on borrowing, ordinary families and
the never-never, or at least some of it is paid for by a windfall
tax on unearned and unexpected income which Putin has put into
the pockets of Shell and
BP. That is the fundamental choice.
: That is the fundamental
choice and the fundamental divide in the House. Let the
Conservatives defend their position of protecting those excess
profits, and we will defend our position of standing up for
working people.
(Ross, Skye and Lochaber)
(SNP):...The decision not to bring in an additional windfall tax
is the biggest and worst political choice in the plan. Let us
look at Shell and
BP as an example. I want corporates to be profitable and to be
able to invest to create jobs and to finance a green transition,
but there is a difference between a fair profit and an excess
windfall or excess profit. Shell’s first half
profits were up by 177% to $25.2 billion. It made excess profits
to such an extent that it bought back shares worth $8.5 billion
and declared that it would buy back a further $6 billion of
shares between July and September. If we want an example of where
excess profit is, it is there. In total, that means that $14.5
billion of excess profits will not be invested in green energy
projects—money that has been generated from the high energy
prices that our constituents and our businesses have to pay. That
is the reality...
(Leeds East) (Lab): Six
months ago, households faced energy bills of £1,300. Today, we
are told that doubling that and fixing prices at £2,500 is the
best we can do to help. It is not. People were struggling with
their energy bills last winter and many more will struggle this
winter, too, with prices doubled. Private energy profits are
being put before the needs of people all while energy firms are
set to make £170 billion in excess profits. This is a huge
transfer of wealth with big corporations hoovering up even more
of the wealth in society, paid for by millions of ordinary
people. The new Prime Minister, a former Shell employee,
has been frank: energy firms, in her view, should be able to keep
those undeserved excess profits...
: I am grateful to the
right hon. Member ()—we go back a long way. He
is, of course, right that I have a background in the City. No
doubt he has read Shell’s quarterly figures, as
I have done. Off the top of my head, the return on capital
employed has gone up from 3% to 13%. By anyone’s definition, that
is excess profit. It is right at times such as this that we take
our share of that...
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