Dear constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about energy prices and a windfall tax on fossil fuel companies. I agree with you on this important issue. Indeed, since January I have consistently supported calls for a windfall tax on oil and gas producers to help millions of families facing the cost-of-living crisis.

As you will know, on 26 May, after having long opposed a windfall tax – including by voting against it on several occasions and with one Cabinet Minister even claiming oil and gas companies were “struggling” – the Government finally listened to these calls.

Yet while I welcome that the Government has at last appeared to recognise the problems the country is facing, I believe its delay in doing so has cost people dearly. For every day it failed to take action, £53 million was added to the energy bills of UK households. Furthermore, the grant support provided will not come until October, unlike other universal measures such as the temporary VAT cut on domestic energy that I support, which would have provided help for people much more quickly. The overall level of cost-of-living support being made available this year, meanwhile, for the most part just makes up for the £35.4 billion of personal tax rises the Chancellor has announced over the next two years.

I believe we needed an emergency Budget that could have supported households by cancelling the National Insurance increase, as well as cutting small business rates and providing help for energy intensive firms, while ensuring every pound of taxpayers’ money is well spent. I also believe we needed a plan for energy security, including a commitment to quickly ramp up home upgrades to make them more energy efficient and cheaper to heat. This would save households £400 on average every year.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this issue. I can assure you that I will continue to support efforts to press the Government for effective action on energy bills and the cost of living crisis.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Dowd MP