Oil and Gas Producers: Windfall Tax

Debate between Jonathan Edwards and Imran Hussain

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

While the Prime Minister, the Government and Tory MPs have spent the past several months arguing among themselves about the untenable future of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), my constituents have been on the blunt end of rising fuel prices, mounting food costs and soaring energy bills, which have pushed already struggling household finances to the brink and created a grave cost of living crisis for many families across the Bradford district. I remind the Minister that that is the central part of the debate. Let me be clear, however, that the cost of living crisis, which means that many families in Bradford need to choose between heating and eating, is no accident. It is the direct result of a decade of this Conservative Government’s incompetence and complete indifference to the lives of ordinary people in places such as Bradford, and it is the direct result of their ideologically driven austerity cuts targeted at some of society’s most vulnerable. It means that in places such as Bradford, nearly half of all children continue to live in poverty, working families continue to be forced to use food banks and destitution continues to spread like a cancer.

The cost of living crisis is not of the making of my constituents in Bradford or, indeed, of the constituents of any Member in this House, but they are the ones literally having to pay the price. Now this Government’s failures to get a grip on soaring energy bills mean a further attack on the most vulnerable, as the needs of greedy energy companies and their profits are put before the needs of our constituents. That is frankly scandalous, and people struggling to make ends meet in Bradford and across the country deserve much better. They deserve better than a Conservative Government who delay taking action on this cost of living crisis to spend time trying to save their doomed Prime Minister. We have to be clear: when people are struggling to put food on the table, to heat their homes and to keep a roof over their head, it is not the time for dithering or for political games; it is the time for leadership and immediate action—something that is lacking from those on the Government Benches.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Does the hon. Member agree that there is an incentive for the Government to act, because people living in cold homes are far more likely to get ill with respiratory diseases? That then leads to a huge hit on health budgets and social care budgets. It is a false prophecy to let market forces rip. We have to act quickly and we have to act now.

[Imran Hussain]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, but the reality remains, as I stated earlier, that this tragedy has not just started now. The last decade under this Government has seen some of the biggest ideological austerity cuts in places such as my constituency in Bradford and in many other places across the country. The reality remains that it is ideological, and the Government know the impact. That is the worst thing: they know the impact of what they do.

Not once in the Minister’s speech did he talk about the impact on ordinary people up and down the country. He could not bring himself to talk about the fact that today, children in our constituencies will go hungry. He could not bring himself to discuss the fact that many people go days on end without a hot meal. He could not bring the words to his mouth to say that destitution is now rife in our country, or that we now have international reports that say that we—the fifth largest economy in the world—are not providing for the public. He does not mention any of that. I am not sure he was in the right debate. He is a new Minister, so perhaps he was in the wrong debate, and I forgive him if so.

Those things are why, as the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) stated clearly, a Labour Government would scrap VAT on domestic energy bills, expand and increase the warm home discount, and impose a windfall tax on greedy energy companies that are taking people for a ride.

The reality is that, even as people in Bradford continue to suffer and even as the plan set out by the Opposition stares them in the face, the Government have no answers, no solution and no offer for my constituents. Frankly, it seems that they could not care less if the most vulnerable places in the country, such as Bradford, are plunged into further poverty and deprivation. I assure them that the longer they take people in Bradford and across the country for fools and the longer they delay in taking the action that ordinary people need to save them from the cost of living crisis, the more that those people will repay them with interest in the ballot box at the next election.