The Chancellor said the government would provide ‘significant support for the British people’ as he set out a £15bn package of support
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a windfall tax on energy companies and £15billion of extra support for households in a statement in the Commons on the cost of living crisis.
The Chancellor said the government would provide “significant support for the British people”, with inflation rocketing and energy bills set to rise by another £800 in the autumn for millions.
It comes after two Tory MPs called on Boris Johnson to quit as pressure grows on the prime minister following the publication of the damning Sue Gray partygate report.
John Baron, Tory MP for Basildon and Billericay said, on Thursday morning, he could no longer give the the prime minister “the benefit of the doubt”.
He said: “The most serious charge against the prime minister is that of knowingly misleading parliament. Given the scale of rule-breaking in No 10, I can not accept that the prime minister was unaware.”
‘Sensible middle ground’
Making a statement in the Commons, the chancellor said the inflation faced by the UK was causing “acute distress for the people of this country” and he knew people were worried.
But, Mr Sunak added: “This government will never stop trying to help people, to fix problems where we can, to do what is right – as we did during the pandemic.”
He confirmed the government would introduce a “temporary targeted energy profits levy” charged at a rate of 25% on profits of oil and gas companies to fund “significant support for the British people”.
However, he said his “sensible middle ground” plan included a new investment allowance, so “for every pound a company invests they will get back 90% in tax relief – the more the company invests the less tax they will pay”.
The chancellor added: “We should not be ideological about this, we should be pragmatic
“It is possible to both tax extraordinary profits fairly and incentivise investments.”
Mr Sunak said the tax would then be removed when energy prices returned to normal levels.
