(Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
(SNP):...Earlier this month, the chief executive of Shell said:
“The solution should not be government intervention but
protection of those who need protection.”
That was before Shell’s third-quarter profits of
$9.5 billion were reported just last week—eye-watering profits
for the super-rich, compared with eye-watering bills for those
who can least afford them. The Government are making the rich
richer at the expense of low-income and middle-income households.
Can they take immediate and prudent action to protect those most
impacted by this energy crisis, now and in the future?
(Ilford South) (Lab):...This
year, Britain’s oil and gas giants are taking home record
profits. Last week, Shell announced
profits of £8 billion—double its profits for the same period last
year. In August, the big five posted quarterly profits of £50
billion. These energy companies are literally profiteering off
the backs of the unimaginable suffering of millions in the UK,
paying out huge multibillion-pound dividends and bonuses to their
wealthy shareholders. It is an immense cost, and it is hurting
people...
(Southampton, Test)
(Lab):...Those customers scratch their heads about why that has
happened: “How is it that we are paying absolutely
out-of-the-window high energy prices while companies are making
such enormous windfall profits?” They scratch their heads when
the Government spend such a long time deciding whether to
alleviate some of the problems caused by those sky-high bills by
introducing any form of windfall levy on those companies, and
when the Government put an enormous loophole in the windfall tax
so that the companies get back most of what they would have paid
in windfall tax if they are, so they say, in a position to
undertake further gas and oil exploration. The grotesque result
is that Shell has
not—
(in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he should address the
Chair.
Dr Whitehead
I apologise, Mrs Murray—I will face the right way from now
on.
The grotesque result is that Shell has
stated that it has not actually paid any windfall levy because it
has got it all back through that loophole. Customers see that the
regulation of the system is so dreadful that they are paying
enormously high prices for their power as if all of it came from
gas, even though half of it now comes from much cheaper
renewables. That is because the market is regulated in such a way
that the marginal cost of gas provides the whole of the price for
the market, and it is a substantial part of the reason why prices
are so high. In short, customers have seen for themselves a
thoroughly broken energy system in operation. They have perhaps
concluded that the privatised norm of the last 30 years has
failed, and that placing energy back in state hands is the
relatively straightforward answer...
To read the whole debate, CLICK HERE
