MP, Labour’s Shadow Climate Change and Net Zero
Secretary, speaking ahead of the Government’s energy
announcement, said:
“The only fair solution to the energy bills crisis is Labour’s
freeze and and her Government must urgently commit to it.
“But core to any solution is the question of who pays? By
ruling out a windfall tax, , in one of her first acts as Prime Minister, has
written a blank cheque to the oil and gas giants making £170
billion in excess profits, and the British people will foot the
bill.
“Every penny her Government refuses to raise in windfall taxes is
money that they will be loading onto the British people for years
to come.
“Beyond the immediate crisis, we need a clean energy sprint for
home-grown power and a national warm homes mission to cut bills
for families. After 12 years of failed Conservative energy
policy, only Labour can deliver the fresh start Britain needs.”
Ends
Notes to editors
Background information (attached):
- Labour’s Energy Plan
- Labour’s Dossier of Conservative Energy Failure
Labour is tonight making five demands for the new
Secretary of State for Energy:
- Government must support a freeze in energy bills this winter,
funding this package through a windfall tax on the oil and gas
giants making unexpected and unearned profits at the expense of
the British people, rather than putting the bill on the British
people with a decade of higher energy bills.
- Government must deliver a clean energy sprint for cheap,
clean, home-grown power that can cut bills for good, including
overturning the effective bans on onshore wind and blocking of
solar power.
- Government must address the chronic failures of successive
energy efficiency schemes and commit to a national Warm Homes
Plan that could cut energy bills for 19 million families across
the UK.
- Government must rule out dangerous and expensive fracking,
which, as the former Business Secretary and current Chancellor
has acknowledged, would make no impact on European gas prices
“any time soon.”
- Government must adopt Labour’s proposal to reform the energy
market to delink electricity and gas prices, thereby bringing
down long term bills for the British public.
- Labour has proposed a fully-funded plan that would prevent
the energy price cap rising through the winter, saving the
average households £1,000 this winter, paid for by extra tax on
the eye-watering profits of oil and gas giants.
- Despite leaked analysis from the Treasury revealing that UK
gas producers and electricity generators may make excess profits
totaling as much as £170 billion over
the next two years, the new Prime Minister has outlined her opposition to
the windfall tax, citing it as a “Labour idea.”
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