The Labour party will call for a vote on introducing a windfall tax for oil and gas companies on Tuesday.
Shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband said that such a tax is needed to help address the cost-of-living crisis and hit out at the government for not having introduced such a measure already.
Labour will table an amendment during a Queen’s Speech debate on Tuesday to enable the Commons to back a windfall tax or oppose it, a vote which Miliband says will give Tory MPs a choice.
Miliband said: “You [Tory MPs] can vote for a windfall tax or you can explain to your constituents why you are refusing to provide them the help that they need.
“I think it is obscene, frankly, that we have as a result of surging energy bills, oil and gas companies making billions of pounds in our country and the government refuses to put a windfall tax on them. It is shameful.
“The case for a windfall tax now is unanswerable...every day that goes by is sleepless nights for millions of people with this government refusing to help.”
Chancellor Rishi Sunak suggested last week that energy firms could be subject to a windfall tax if they fail to invest enough of their profits into future energy projects.
Mel Stride, the Tory chair of the Commons Treasury Committee, has also said that there is a case for a “one-off windfall tax” owing to the “extraordinary circumstances” of the cost-of-living crisis, and that money raised from it could be “channelled to those who are really struggling”.
However, ministers are reluctant to implement the windfall tax as per Labour’s recommendation, with business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng hinting that it could deter firms from investing in the UK.
Kwarteng pointed out that the government had already provided support in the shape of the council tax rebate and other measures but was supportive of the chancellor’s position of not “taking anything off the table” four months prior to the next budget.
He said: “What you are taxing is investment in jobs, you are taxing investment in wealth creation, you are taxing investment in new technologies.
“And that is what we want to see, we want to see more investment. We don't want to see taxes that essentially act against any incentive to invest.
“I am not surprised that a Labour frontbencher is saying we should put up taxes - that's not something that is new to me.”
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
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