Economy Update Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Economy Update

Richard Burgon Excerpts
Thursday 26th May 2022

(2 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Rishi Sunak Portrait Rishi Sunak
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why the Business Secretary and the Prime Minister announced the plan to reform the energy market so that we can reduce those bills over time and also double down on our initiatives to improve the energy efficiency of people’s homes, which can save them £200 or £300 relatively quickly.

Richard Burgon Portrait Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
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The windfall tax amounts to just £5 billion, but it could have been well over double that and still left North sea oil and gas giants with the same profit levels they have had in recent years, before they benefited from this price spike. Surely the Chancellor should be doing everything he can to help people who are struggling, so why is he still letting oil and gas companies keep billions in undeserved profits?

Rishi Sunak Portrait Rishi Sunak
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I think that the official Labour party view is that the windfall tax would raise £2 billion. The way we have structured ours means it will in fact raise £5 billion, which is a significant amount of revenue that will help fund the things we have announced today.