The windfall tax hits pensions and does nothing for Britain’s growth

SIR – The Chancellor’s windfall tax on energy companies reduces dividends, to the detriment of workers’ pensions and the economy.

No attempt was made to remove the 5 per cent VAT on energy bills (Letters, May 25) or, indeed, the green levies that increase the cost of living, despite Britain having left the EU.

Workers have also been hit with a 1.25 per cent National Insurance increase, and the Chancellor has persevered with an increase in corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent next year, making Britain less competitive internationally.

If we still have a Conservative government, it might consider asking Nigel Lawson how he managed to expand the economy while cutting tax and raising revenue during the 1980s.

It might also remember the basic economics of supply and demand and ask the United States how increasing the supply of gas by fracking has reduced its cost to consumers. Michael Staples

Seaford, East Sussex

SIR – If the energy market worked properly, companies would not make abnormal profits, as competition would cause them to reduce prices to win more business instead of all gaining oligopoly profits.

If companies reduced prices (or limited increases) we would have lower inflation and less fuel poverty.

Donald M Mackenzie

Inverness

SIR – The windfall tax is a lazy, harmful way to help people with high energy bills, which have largely been caused by the neglect of long-term planning by successive governments of all hues.

Instead National Insurance and tax increases should be reversed to start generating much-needed growth.

The economy is heading for disaster, with no party showing any signs of understanding basic economics.

Nick Denton

East Molesey, Surrey

SIR – The almost universal panicked responses of governments to claims of climate catastrophe and to the Covid pandemic have been major drivers of world inflation, on top of the malign effect of Vladimir Putin’s war.

Fossil fuels, prudently exploited, have been, and still are, a boon. Lockdowns never were a part of the world’s reasoned response to the next pandemic.

Instead of opposing the errors made by the Government, Sir Keir Starmer has called on it to make them worse – with more destruction of reliable power sources, more green subsidies and harder lockdowns.

Mike Post

Marlow, Buckinghamshire

SIR – I am weary of government policy in the future tense. Commitments, reviews and intended actions there are aplenty, but rarely do we hear of actions completed. The evidence is a virtually blank checklist for the 2019 Conservative manifesto. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

John Pritchard

Ingatestone, Essex