(Edinburgh South) (Lab):...What of this one-off
windfall tax on the unexpected cash bonanza for the oil and gas
sector? The SNP group here in Westminster has been more
interested in standing up for Shell than
standing up for Scottish taxpayers. [Interruption.] Again,
Hansard has all of this documented. When my colleagues and I put
down a motion in this House for a vote on a windfall tax on the
enormous excess profits of the oil and gas companies, the SNP
sided with the Conservatives and failed to back it. In fact, the
SNP BEIS spokesperson, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South, who is
sitting not yards from me and who moved this motion, defended
that position vociferously in this House. The deputy leader of
the SNP did not back our motion on BBC “Politics Scotland”, live
on television, and the hon. Member for Gordon () said:
“I am sorry to say that I have not heard anything to persuade me
why a one-off smash and grab on the North sea industry is the
best way to deal with this crisis.”—[Official Report, 1 February
2022; Vol. 708, c. 239.]
Let us see what this crisis is doing. Shell’s
profits have quadrupled, in what its CEO has described as a
“momentous” year, to an unexpected $19 billion. That is $600 a
second in profit, driven primarily by the huge increases in
energy prices. While Scottish families face the heartbreaking
choice between eating and heating, the CEO of BP is describing
the energy sector as a “cash machine” for his business. Under our
proposals, he would be popping his corporate credit card in the
cash machine, and giving a little bit of that money back to
struggling families. Before both Governments—the Scottish
Government and the UK Government—trot out the usual defence of
harming investment, most of that unexpected profit is going to
additional bonuses for shareholders in dividends and buybacks of
shares, so such businesses will not be using that money for
investment...
(Dundee East) (SNP): Of
course, what successive UK Governments have not done simply makes
the situation worse. We have all seen—and have just heard
about—petrol and diesel approaching £2 per litre, and in some
cases it already costs more than that. That is £9 or £10 a
gallon, which essentially means that it costs over £100 to fill
up an average saloon car tank. That is prohibitively expensive
for someone on modest wages who simply wants to fill up the car
in order to get to work. Yet every Tory Government I can recall
has set their face against a “fuel duty regulator”, which would
at least have moderated some of these obscene increases. May I
just respond to something that was said by the shadow Secretary
of State, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South ()? Let us remind ourselves that Shell alone
made £4.7 billion of profit in the final quarter of 2021, and £14
billion in the entire year. So someone is doing very nicely out
of these rising costs...
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