Now Rishi lines up electricity giants for extra tax

RISHI Sunak has ordered his officials to draw up plans for a windfall tax on electricity generators’ profits, on top of the widely expected hit on North Sea oil and gas producers.

Major electricity producers could have made more than £10billion in excess profits this year as a result of higher gas prices, according to the Financial Times.

The Treasury could rake in far more money if it targeted big power firms such as SSE, Scottish Power and EDF Energy – plus wind farm operators – as well as major oil and gas producers.

Mr Sunak is ‘instinctively against’ a windfall tax on energy firms but may yet impose one, a Cabinet colleague said yesterday. The Chancellor could decide that the worsening cost of living crisis requires ‘extraordinary measures’, the Business Secretary told MPs.

Kwasi Kwarteng added that he himself was opposed to the raid on oil and gas companies’ coffers because it would put off investors.

‘I don’t think it supports investment. I don’t think it’s necessarily the right thing,’ he told the business, energy and industrial strategy committee.

‘But that’s up to the Chancellor. He is instinctively against a windfall tax but if he feels these extraordinary times require extraordinary measures, that’s up to him.’

Companies that service energy giants have warned the Government against imposing any sort of windfall tax as a way of raising money for households struggling with soaring bills.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister and Chancellor, 31 organisations in the offshore supply chain said: ‘A one-off windfall tax will not sustainably help consumers and will only further reduce investor confidence in the UK.’