The Chancellor has said a Windfall tax on domestic oil and gas is on the table. That is the low tax Chancellor. He says if the industry does not get on and invest he will think about it. He should know there is already a large windfall tax in place on UK oil and gas profits. They pay double corporation tax.
The Chancellor has a problem. Investment is lower than we would like. It is lower than many rival economies. It needs to be higher to help boost productivity, the key to rising living standards. There is an additional issue. UK policy in the EU was based on increasing our imports in industry, energy and agriculture leaving us with a large balance of payments deficit. We need plenty of inward investment to meet the bills in foreign currency for all those imports.
The Chancellor has decided to increase the UK corporation tax rate from next year. This is bound to deter more investment and put off some that might have otherwise have come. Ireland choosing a much lower corporation tax rate than ours greatly exceeds us in the amount of foreign investment it attracts, and collects more corporation tax revenue in relation to its GDP than we do. Treasury models and sages say this is impossible. In order to offset the negative effects of higher tax on investment the Chancellor offered super deductions against corporation tax this year to encourage an investment surge. It has helped but it has not been on anything like the scale needed. Many investors look through the super deduction to the higher rates to come and do not like what they see.
The Chancellor promised us he would spend the spring and summer studying what new types of offset or deduction he could offer to try to embed a more favourable tax regime for new investment into his corporation tax proposals from next year. We await those with interest. I can assure him the threat of a Windfall tax is not part of such a package.
The best way to attract more investment is to have low simple and stable rates. The more you change it and the more complex it is the more investors will decide to go elsewhere. Threatening investors who you want to make large long term commitments is a particularly bad idea. That is Labour policy, which I oppose.
April 29, 2022
Good morning.
NAIL, HEAD, HIT !!!!
New Labour may no longer be in office, but they made damned well sure that their ‘Client State’ is still in power, as Dom so rightly points out. Until you get rid of that you will continue to have policies that reflect Labour’s and a Chancellor that looks increasingly rediculous in the eyes of many true conservatives.
The problem is, we do not have a PM or government that sees the problem let alone one that can and will tackle it.
April 29, 2022
Highest taxation in 70 years under this socialist govt.- which JR now recognises as such- and Sunak wants more taxes!! Perhaps this govt. is striving for another record lowest inward investment in history to go along with highest borrowing, highest debt, highest deficit, lowest standard of living, no national security for food, energy, steel etc.
JR, what is the exact point of your party and govt? What value does it give it citizens? You are now. It allowed to make noise protests! Glue yourself to roads is okay police will help and support you to your spot in the road, bend the knee and the police will join in, dissent to govt. will not be allowed on line, in public, you will be censored or smeared.
Home Office head mandarin defends useless head of passports to say working from home is fine and does not make a difference. When is he going to be sacked along with the lady in charge of passports?
Russia is bad, China who broke Hong Kong Treaty is okay, enslaving some of its people okay, giving the world man made Chinese fly causing millions of deaths and catastrophic harm okay, spying on and bribing UK MPs accepted and okay, stealing intellectual property okay, muscling in on all key infrastructure to make countries dependent on it to dominate world okay, dominating WHO okay, land grabbing okay, build hundreds of coal fired power stations each year okay. Is the UK going to send and supply Taiwan with billions of taxpayers cash in weapons and military personnel? What is the UK doing about Saudi Arabia’s war Yemen?
April 29, 2022
A simpler timely move would be a one-off wealth – including asset – tax.
April 29, 2022
Rishi is up on his tax take, £113 billion (14%). 21/22 tax year £908 billion; 20/21 tax year £794 billion. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/datasets/appendixdpublicsectorcurrentreceipts
Remember that taxation is the way the Treasury gets its own monopoly money back that it created out of thin air into the private sector. When it gets it back via its multiple forms of taxation; it disappears back into the thin air from whence it came. It does not fund future government spending; every Pound the government spends is brand new every day, created on a keyboard.
Taxation in a fiat currency economy has two purposes. To stop/ slowdown the private sector from supplying some goods or services the government doesn’t like (tobacco, sugar and similar). Secondly, to divert some goods or services the government does like, out of the private sector market and into the public sector for social-economic purposes. Unfortunately, you won’t find anyone in Westminster that understands this. Like it doesn’t understand that there is no such thing as a sovereign currency issuing government “borrowing” its own monopoly money from anyone.
April 29, 2022
It is always more and more tax.
Eventually you will kill the golden goose.
History of socialist high tax countries shows that our policy ends in poverty for everyone.
April 30, 2022
The Scandinavians seem to do quite well with a high tax economic model. The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s 10th World Happiness Report, published Friday, found that Finland’s score was “significantly ahead” of other countries in the top 10. Denmark remained in second place, followed by Iceland, while Sweden and Norway occupied the seventh and eighth spots on the list, respectively. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-taxed-countries
April 30, 2022
Yes, Acorn.
It simply depends on the popular will and consent.
There is no law of physics to support Peter’s claim whatsoever.
April 30, 2022
Happiness index….another nonsensical survey with loaded questions.
High taxes eventually ruin the economy.
And NHL
Every big state high tax socialist country has ended in disaster.
PS Sweden isn’t socialist
April 29, 2022
and how EXACTLY do you propose to make that work across the enormous range of situations?
April 29, 2022
OK, let’s just confine it to a Land Tax eh?
April 29, 2022
So you get taxed because you own land.
How do you create the cash to pay the tax on the value decided by the state?
April 29, 2022
NLH
What you mean a bit like Council tax, which is already annual.
April 30, 2022
Council Tax is not a bit like that, quite the opposite.
The owner of Sandringham only pays the same as that of an ordinary five-bedroomed family house.
April 30, 2022
Do they cost the council.any more?
April 29, 2022
I share your frustration with all this, Hope. But perhaps it’s easier to understand once we realise that the British government does not have a deciding influence over policies followed in Britain. It generally responds to transnational elite pressure, whether it be in the economic sphere, public health, social trends, citizens’ rights or foreign policy. I’m struggling to think of any current policy initiative that came from the expression of what the general public want. The WHO pandemic treaty currently being worked out under cover of near-silence from the media typifies how things work. It will end our sovereignty over our health policy, but (or perhaps ‘and so’) Johnson’s government has given the nod to the idea.
April 29, 2022
Should we pay for weapons to supply Taiwan? No. Should we allow them to buy what they want? Yes. The government here needs to assess where China wants to be in, say, 30 years time. And then work out how that would affect us. And then, in concert with our allies, frustrate every one of evil China’s plans.
April 29, 2022
SW,
The UK will be too dependent on Chinese products to challenge anything, as we saw with Chinese virus. The amount of goods, components, even PPE we get from China. China has a plan to make countries dependent on it so it can dominate the world. Socialist UK govt. willing to carry on get further in hock and let it happen.
April 29, 2022
Fakery..
Fake tories
Fake tory tax policies
Fake fishing policies
Fake brexit.. curate’s egg at best
Fake freeports
I could go one, but you get the gist.
April 29, 2022
+1
April 29, 2022
Maybe Sunak does not care. He seems to have blown his chance of the top job and has already moved out of Downing Street.
April 29, 2022
He’s putting his stall in order for his new life in the good old US of A
April 29, 2022
We are governed by incompetents and bullshitters. Are the rank and file Tory MPs ever going to wake up and feed their letters in for a vote of no confidence? A true test of facing the music (but no dancing!) or turning face away from reality….dozens of them will be out on their backside come the next GE.
April 29, 2022
Correct in all respects – we need a new leader now so that he/she can be proven two years prior to the next election with two years to reverse the policies of net-zero, open migration, allegiance to international bodies, the NI protocol, the EU trade & cooperation agreement and the house of lords
April 29, 2022
+1
April 29, 2022
I can understand this up to a point MarkB, the Conservatives have been in power for longer than Labour, they will have hired more staff in this time and took over 12 years ago after 13 years of Labour so adequate time to balance the Management surely?
April 29, 2022
a-tracy
You might think that but, many of the people that New Labour brought in are still there and those that moved on would have been replaced by like minded (ie Leftwing) people. For an example, look at the BBC ? They only advertise through the Guardian newspaper to ensure the ‘right types’ need only apply 😉
April 30, 2022
If only there was a technical solution, so that the BBC could advertise its jobs on, say, the BBC’s website. Then it wouldn’t need to pay for advertising space at The Guardian. If only!
April 29, 2022
Sir John,
The Chancellor clearly does not know his job, he’s handling it like a school boy.
April 29, 2022
Sunak accepted the post under the terms his office is run by Downing Street. That is allegedly why Javid left. Bunter Johnson cannot run his own finances, why does any right minded person think he will not make a mess of the purse purse? He stated the other he was the guardian of the public purse, a shiver went down my spine as a reminder that we had the biggest wasted in history in charge of our money and why it is insuch a chaotic mess. I think JR accepts this by his blog today.
Former ministers claimed the previous budgets were good socialist budgets. I am surprised it has taken JR and some colleagues to realise the same.
April 29, 2022
You may be correct, Sunak out of his depth, but I wonder if the ‘demand reduction’, to bring inflation down, will be achieved by increased taxation rather than increasing interest rates.
Bit sledgehammerish rather than scalpel, but it gives the Treasury lots more money rather than the banks getting it all.
Sir J…?
April 29, 2022
Unless his remit is to destroy British industry and replace it with imports. If that is the case, then he executes his task with excellent competence.
April 29, 2022
Exactly, but it is surely very clear now that Rishi Sunak is a tax, borrow and piss down the drain socialist and a manifesto ratting Chancellor who thinks, pretends (or just lies) that he is a tax cutting Thatcherite.
His overall tax grab CT, NI, Frozen allowances (IHT, IT, Pensions, CGT…) is a massive and hugely damaging tax grab. The insane expensive energy net zero agenda making it all far worse too. He is an economic illiterate as we have come to expect of nearly all PPE graduates.
A fascinating podcast on Delingpod with the excellent (and surely largely correct) Dr. Mike Yeadon is certainly worth listening too.
April 29, 2022
Yeadon is an anti-vaxxer isn’t he? Delingpole is a good interviewer but since he went anti-vaxx and started spouting Trump’s nonsense about the stolen election he hasn’t been able to get interesting people, mainly obscure obsessives and nutters. So I’ve given up listening to it.
April 29, 2022
Richard1
Mike Yeadon isn’t an “ativaxxer” he founded his own biotech company and was deputy head of Pfizer so I think you’ll agree that he knows exactly what he’s talking about, he described trying to stop a virus with a mask akin to trying to stop a mosquito with a chain link fence
Or perhaps your more qualified than he is?
April 29, 2022
You’re!
April 29, 2022
He was not deputy head of pfizer. He worked in research there. He is right about masks but – on the evidence – wrong about vaccines.
April 29, 2022
Richard1, Yeadon is a former vice-president of Pfizer and chief scientist of allergy and respiratory research there. You don’t say why you think he is wrong on (Covid) vaccines. He has claimed they pose serious health risks. If you look at the MHRA’s yellow card reports of UK vaccine-linked adverse effects (over 2,000 deaths), or the much more clearly presented reports by the US equivalent VAERS (30,000+ deaths), I think you will find it hard to disagree with him.
April 29, 2022
I listened to the podcast, did you ?
The man came over very knowledgeable. Honestly stated what he knew and did not know. Made some very good points and quoted many sources.
As for ex-President Trump, well he was cheated. Had the media, which they are only now doing, taken more interest in a certain laptop then the election may very well have turned out different.
April 29, 2022
I am not an anti-vaxxer and nor is he. He and I however are against using dangerous vaccines that are ineffective especially ones being given to people who never even needed them. Are not all sensible people? Dr Mike Yeadon makes a very convincing case. The current stats seems to support him rather showing that vaccines are not very effective and often rather dangerous too.
April 29, 2022
Highest taxes for 70+ years and still rising yet:-
A record low of just 5.8% of crimes solved by police as rape, murders and violence all rise. Home Office figures showed the proportion of all offences resulting in a charge fell from 7.5% to 5.8% in a year – and is nearly a third of the rate of 15.5% in 2014/15 when records began.
The ones they do solve are rarely the serious ones people really want to be solved either but simple trivial ones. I have, over my life in the UK (until I had to leave for tax reasons a few years back) reported a total of 12 crimes to the police – not once did they do or (even try to do) anything useful about them despite often abundant evidence. Just a crime number and victim of crime letter.
April 29, 2022
Looks like a party and government of Labour with a hint of Green
April 29, 2022
LL when we elected police commissioners at a huge cost there should have been an improvement, not a deterioration, this decision to have elected commissioners should be overturned and the money put on detectives.
April 29, 2022
AT,
The public rejected police commissioners and mayors and the socialist Tories still imposed them on us. Voting still so exceptionally low that it is obvious the public do not want and should not have bear the extra costs from their taxes.
April 29, 2022
I agree Hope.
April 29, 2022
Agree
April 29, 2022
Cheers LL
Listening to it now. Confirms much of what I believed about the SCAMDEMIC, even BEFORE it became fashionable.
April 29, 2022
You should do a little research on Yeadon. He wrote newspaper articles with predictions in which turned out to be wildly inaccurate.
April 29, 2022
As so too did someone from UCL. Someone with a proven track record of getting it wrong but was still used as a source especially by Auntie because if helped fuel the Fear Factor 😉
April 29, 2022
He won’t get a fresh version of the spreadsheet – he needs to be able to quote bizarre predictions to feed the naive Downing St fools.
April 29, 2022
Not as inaccurate as the ones given by the government’s “experts” I suspect. Which ones are you referring to?
April 30, 2022
I hope you realise that everything that Mike Yeadon said is based on his feelings, his thoughts. Whatever he says on mRNA vaccines is based on … essentially nothing, no data, no statistical analysis, just his gut-feelings.
You obviously know that in summer 2020 he said there would be no second wave.
And that over the overall length of the pandemic he has been repeatedly shown to be wrong.
Isn’t it curious that such a great scientific mind as LL could have been so misled by MY?
April 29, 2022
PP
I didn’t see any articles from Mike Yeadon making predictions about anything
April 29, 2022
We’ve had foot&mouth disease, MRSA, swine fever, Covid – you have now confirmed, Sir John, that we have the worst and most pervasive of pandemics sweeping through the governing classes:
unutterable stupidity.
History shows time and again that constantly increasing the number of taxes and raising them again and again is deeply harmful – does the well-being of the UK actually mean anything at all to your colleagues in Westminster? I know it does to you.
April 29, 2022
Off topic! I have just heard on the BBC news that 8000 British troops are going to a big exercise in Eastern Europe! What are they going to use , Boris has given away all their equipment to his mate Mr “e”
April 29, 2022
Maybe Ursula can get Olaf to lend them a few of her broomsticks.
April 29, 2022
Thats about quarter of our combat troops
April 29, 2022
The Tory policy of high imports which needs high levels of money coming into the country to offset the vast amounts going out – I oppose. Do we want foreigners to own the whole country.
April 29, 2022
Mike Wilson
That is their cunning plan Mike and has been all along.
April 29, 2022
I don’t understand why we import gas and coal when we could frack shale gas and open old coal mines here !!! madness or a very big bung
April 29, 2022
Because it is cheaper. We were importing Aussie coal sometime ago.
April 29, 2022
Has anyone looked to see why Aussie coal is cheaper? Australia isn’t a third world with slave wages, and transporting coal half way round the world can’t be cheap. Is it REALLY cheaper, and if so, why. What are they doing right and we are doing wrong?
April 29, 2022
I thought it was because Boris wanted to show off our reduced carbon footprint to his new international friends
April 29, 2022
‘Do we want foreigners to own the whole country.’?
I think it is a bit late to be concerned.
April 29, 2022
Gordon Brown Treasury; socialist-green Government; Labour policies.
There’s no point voting CON. You might just as well vote Labour.
April 29, 2022
+1
April 29, 2022
Actually Donna, Labour’s record on the economy during Brown is far better and they had lower taxes! Cost of living was better as well. It is unbelievable but true. So on record and fact we are financially personally better off under Labour. Voting Tory would be a sentimental act based on hope or what they used to stand for under Thatcher. That disappeared under Cameron.
April 29, 2022
Green – green inside
Yellow – green inside
Red – green inside
Blue – red & green inside
Reform – red, white & blue inside
April 29, 2022
Donna, we’d have a Labour government that had to work hand in glove with the SNP, high levels of socialism, have you seen the list of things they want to do? Starmer and Sturgeon want to overturn Brexit and get us locked in with complete and utter Brino, repudiating all the deals with the RoW.
April 29, 2022
+1 and we also get the green party with the CONS. The only party the CONS do not resemble is the Conservatives!
April 29, 2022
Following the WEF playbook.
Nothing the chancellor does gives me any hope of a recovery.
We are still following EU rules on energy agriculture and manufacturing.
We need a real right wing party in power.
April 29, 2022
A sensible tax-cutting Chancellor would use Occam’s Razor to slash the needless complication of tax rules. Tax exists to pay for Govt expenditure and moderate unwanted behaviour. Why have more than a few taxable sources? Energy consumption is one fundamental relevant to all.
Instead, the tax system has thousands of different sources and extremely complex rules. Exclusions, reliefs, rebates & benefit entitlements vary, mix and muddle further.
A village idiot could design a better system. Simple efficiency is most in need.
April 29, 2022
+100
April 29, 2022
This chancellor is an utter failure and needs to be replaced as soon as possible before he causes irreparable damage to our country. Preferably, this time, with someone who understands economics, like yourself Sir John.
April 29, 2022
Christine,
It is not Sunak, it is the bloke next door.
April 29, 2022
Yes it is extraordinary, totally counter intuitive, contradicts economic law proven by previous Tory chancellors and opposite to what he says.
He has been infected by the Johnson ‘lying syndrome’
I cannot believe you and your colleagues are not having robust discussions with him/his team. What do they say in response to the points you put, or again do you get bland/nothing responses as we saw in your other blog.
Please tell.
Reply Ministers give the same answers as you can read or hear on the media
April 29, 2022
Reply to reply. In other words, nothing of any use or understanding.
April 29, 2022
So the solution to try and stop a Company maximising profit is to tax it more, thus automatically reducing its profit.
Pray tell me why anyone would even try to make a profit with higher efficiency and investment, if the threat is always going to be there to take it away.
The company has a couple of obvious solutions, and they are:
To simply increase its prices, because as usual it is the customer that pays all the business costs (including taxation) in the end.
Or to reduce production/income, which would automatically lower its profits/tax, but will automatically increase prices via shortages..
April 29, 2022
Alan,
Re Windfall tax. As I see it this would not be so much to raise revenue, but to try to stop the big virtual ‘monopolies’ from fleecing the public with their rip off unwarranted prices, especially at a time of such hardship for so many, but the government obviously does not want to protect Joe public’s mid and low earners but to featherbed the super rich which seems their main policy. We know that the excess profits made this year from rip off prices (even the 5p fuel reduction has not been passed on) will not be invested because one CEO said they had so much money they don’t know what to do with it. Their investment plans are laid out years in advance and this money will not be used for that. What they are doing is buying back their own shares and increasing bonuses and dividends for people who frankly don’t need it a this time.
April 29, 2022
Alan
There is another obvious response….move your capital to a jurisdiction which allows a better return
April 29, 2022
I must say, who would have thought that dour Scot was a master of disguise? Amazing!
April 29, 2022
I think we can safely assume that the focus groups have told Johnson/Sunak that the idea of a windfall tax is popular in the areas where Local Elections are being held in a week’s time.
It’s a dog whistle ….. but longer-term just weakens any case for conservatively-minded people to vote CON. Johnson still thinks he can ignore us because “there’s nowhere else to go.” Until we demonstrate otherwise (like UKIP did to Cameron) nothing will change. The CONs only fear a revolt from the Right.
April 29, 2022
There was no better sight than see CMD begging the Turnip Taliban to come back to the Tory fold.
Treat them (political parties) mean, keep them keen.
April 29, 2022
And in other news I see we are sending thousands of troops to Eastern Europe. If ever there was a reason for Putin to justify his claims of NATO aggression threatening his borders, this is it.
Do the British public support you risking an escalation from a cornered rat with nuclear weapons?
I don’t.
April 29, 2022
Nor do I, Nig L. But NATO has got past caring about the rights and wrongs of the matter and different points of view. There is to be no public debate on how deeply we get ourselves into this war. We’re told America has security concerns that apparently extend to the Solomon islands half way round the world from Washington. But Russia isn’t allowed to have security concerns. The double standard is obvious – and therefore to be carefully avoided in public discussion, in which only one point of view will be accepted.
I am deeply worried about where all this is going. Johnson is playing with fire, and unlike his house, mine doesn’t have a nuclear bunker.
April 29, 2022
Nig1. That is precisely what I just said to hubby over the breakfast table. Those in charge just never know when to back off. Still, it’s not their arse on the line and I’m sure they’ve got their fully supplied bunkers to hand.
April 29, 2022
Sending a brigade to Central Europe is clearly wrong; it should be a full division, as a permanent garrison. And the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment should stable its horses, draw some tanks, and get down to Salisbury Plain.
April 29, 2022
Or why not send a gunboat, Sea Warrior?
April 29, 2022
we would but don’t have any!
April 30, 2022
I was rather disappointed to see the MoD despatch a River-class gunboat to the Eastern Med. It was a reminder of just how far the Royal Sea Warriors’ stock of destroyers and frigates has fallen.
BTW, the River-class was a hugely-expensive make-work scheme for BAE Systems. It wouldn’t have been necessary had successive governments established a proper drumbeat of frigate and destroyer building.
April 29, 2022
I agree, Sir john, that a windfall tax is pernicious. However there is going to be a reckoning where (some) households will not be able to pay their fuel bills. There is speculation that a levy on the end user (us) will provide a fund to subsidise these households.
Gas and electricity is a utility and a service, it is not up to the end users to subsidise other users. The supplier should carry this burden so while I do not think there should be a windfall tax, the supplier should provide subsidies to those who need it out of their excess profits at this time.
April 29, 2022
Invest in the UK if you lose you lose but if you win Sunak will arrange a windfall tax so you lose anyway. Sound like a great way to encourage investment in energy or anything else Rishi you daft tax to death Socialist.
April 29, 2022
NS, they’ll pay their energy bills, they have little protection against being cut off, they simply won’t pay their rents they get six months grace with those.
April 29, 2022
+1 often more than six month and you can almost never recover it?
April 29, 2022
The treble whammy from the Chancellor, (1) repayment of covid loans (2) higher inflation and (3) higher energy bills
Small businesses have been through hell during the last couple of years…but worst is to come
April 29, 2022
Rather than creating a windfall tax for energy producers (not resellers), our chancellor should be removing taxes on gas and oil extraction. The greater the supply, the lower the price. He should be doing everything he can to pull the levers of supply.
April 29, 2022
I agree. If the ‘double corporation tax’ were to go, more projects would pass their investment appraisals, leading to more production and, probably, the same tax take as before. That Sunak can’t see that is just another reason why he should clear out his desk and make way for a proper Conservative. There’s one in Wokingham, I gather.
April 29, 2022
NS can you name two conservative decisions Sunak has made?
April 29, 2022
1) ‘I have no control over, nor responsibility for my wife’s financial affairs’
2) Supporting a failing lame duck PM when the whole country can see its a lost cause – they do that well!
April 29, 2022
I am at a loss A-tracy?
April 29, 2022
(1) He burnt his green card
(2) He increased national insurance
April 30, 2022
Glen, he increased NI for everyone for 3 months then reduced it for anyone earning less than £35,000 and soon anyone earning under £12570 wont contribute at all
April 29, 2022
NS. And insist that more oil be produced for this country first. If the USA can produce it’s own cheap energy then we shoukd be able to.
April 29, 2022
Very worrying that a Conservative Chancellor could consider such a foolish measure. If in doubt about a policy a reasonable rule of thumb is to see who’s in favour of it. In this case it’s the likes of Milliband Starmer etc. That’s enough to know it’s a silly idea.
April 29, 2022
If investment is lower than the chancellor would like, it’s going to have to come from overseas investment. UK potential for investment is taxed away before it can be utilised.
Why does the government prefer a system of overseas ownership of public utilities?
April 29, 2022
The Treasury is running the Chancellor’s office not the Chancellor running the Treasury!
The same is true for just about every other government department, insomuch the minister makes an acceptable statement indicating that progress will be made and several weeks later nothing has happened because the civil servants have either delayed it or blocked it.
Rwanda is a case in point as the H o L is putting up a whole long list of time wasting amendments and questions.
Boris, stop being polite and start running the country. You are allowing the Remainers to run free and wreck your 5 years in office. Stop asking the Civil Servants for advice, tell them in plain English what to do.
And tell the remainers in the H of L to ‘sod off!!!
April 29, 2022
The offshore wind companies definitely are making windfall profits by charging around £320/ MWh selling electricity at the increased market price but still including the subsidy, which all goes on the bill. But of course this Green government does not even consider a windfall tax on wind windfalls.
April 29, 2022
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/04/18/roc-windfall-profits-hit-923-million-in-december-2021/#more-56180
April 29, 2022
I think he should reduce the size of the negative taxes on wind farms. Maybe even abolish them.
April 29, 2022
Stred
That’s the best idea yet and it would work. They had years of massive subsidies from the tax payers.
April 29, 2022
I am absolutely furious and disgusted at the decision to delay – probably forever – import controls on EU food. This is a BETRAYAL OF BREXIT. It seems the chief architect of this was Jacob Rees-Mogg, proving what a vile fraud and traitor he is. He has locked-in a permanent advantage for EU producers over UK ones, whose exports to the EU are subject to the costs and checks which he has now waived for EU exporters. The whole point of Brexit was to make Britain more successful, and that means BRITISH PRODUCERS – who are British employers and British taxpayers. Instead JRM is helping EU producers at the expense of British ones. He has stabbed Britain and all Brexit voters in the back.
JRM keeps talking about helping “consumers”, but these are NOT all the same! WHICH consumers is he trying to help? The Red Wall Conservatives or the left-wing, metropolitan, Remain-supporting ones? Red Wall Tories don’t eat Brie and Camembert! I WANT EU FOOD PRICES TO INCREASE!! That way we can encourage people (and supermarkets) to buy BRITISH FOOD. Is there ANY Tory MP who understands this? The EU is our ENEMY. Nobody needs to eat EU food. BUYING EU FOOD IS LIKE BUYING RUSSIAN GAS. My hatred for this government of traitors has gone all the way up ro 11.
April 29, 2022
Brexit is not a person, so cannot be “betrayed” as you rather strangely put it.
It is simply a policy, and a monumentally daft one at that. So you could claim that a failure to implement what you believe to be its requirements was a derogation from that declared intention, and that would at least seem less deranged, especially if written in lower case.
April 29, 2022
It isn’t a policy NHL
It is the decision of a majority of the voters in the 2016 referendum.
April 30, 2022
You can betray a cause as well as a person. Brexit was a cause pursued by many people with views you don’t like but which proved more popular than yours. Then government politicians took over how it would be carried out, and the result is what we have today. A good old British compromise that doesn’t seem to satisfy anybody. Being free of the EU, we don’t have to follow its policies on e.g. public health and energy any more. My impression is that we’ve benefited from being able to take our own decisions in the first policy area, but not the second.
April 30, 2022
Well, yes, some of the religious have such a thing as “apostasy”.
It seems a bit the same with brexiters, doesn’t it?
April 30, 2022
No
Nothing like it NHL
April 29, 2022
Did he get any concessions for British food exporters for this?
April 29, 2022
+1
Just showing how weak kneed our Government is again, further weakening any chance of further negotiation successes.
April 29, 2022
Why do all the left-thinking politicians keep coming up with these absurd Windfall taxes. They shout these things in order, it seems, as a punishment for those daring to make a profit — to underline the point that they are in control and they shouldn’t be crossed.
It’s hard to trust the motives of our own left leaning Chancellor when he could do so much for the economy by following proven Thatcherite economic policies — He deliberately avoids them! Suggesting he is not trying very hard to mend the economy.
April 29, 2022
But is the present Parliamentary Conservative Party any more likely to vote against a Windfall Tax, than it did against the NHI surcharge?
And I do not think anyone has made the double Corporation Tax point in any of the exchanges with the opposition. Sunak and Boris are probably unaware of it.
April 29, 2022
Investment is key to productivity increases and we compare unfavourably with our competitors.
As a country we are heavily dependent on foreign investment to support our current account but in the long term those investments are intended to return capital as profits to the owning country so allowing foreign countries to snaffle successful British businesses like Meggitt is very obviously indeed an extremely bad idea although all we hear from the government is that its ok because the intended purchaser is an ‘ally’. Being owned abroad means that decisions about future investment in the company will be taken abroad and will be based on the preferences and existing portfolio of the new owner. After all the nonsense over ARM Holdings being bought by a Japanese Hedge Fund one would have thought the BEIS had learned its lesson. But have they? No, they are Arts graduates so they don’t ‘get’ science or engineering industry although they have responsibility for it.
Are the levels of investment taking place here being understated? With so much of our industry owned abroad, is R&D subject in some cases to transfer pricing so that it appears to be taking place in the low tax state in which it is domiciled in order to reduce the declared profit here further? Why do foreign companies persist in operating in locations where they appear not to get much return at all?
April 29, 2022
”That is Labour policy, which I oppose”
We on this diary have been saying the same since Cameron and May but the push towards labour’ish policies under Boris are now above the table and apparent
April 29, 2022
“I can assure him the threat of a Windfall tax is not part of such a package.” – quite!
(The author of the coming Sunak slump is no good, is he!)
April 29, 2022
There seems to be a basic misunderstanding on how to run a income and expenditure ledger.
All these socialist style threats on more windfall taxes are just a solution and investment deterrent.
Selling off more of GB UK businesses to foreign competitors is not the answer neither is the vast sums of taxpayers money wasted on an hourly basis to satisfy ego’s and grandiose ideas we are still a world power.
The Chancellor has the answer sitting on his desk. STOP THE WASTE.
Bring in a amnesty for all those people who played the Covid support packages to the nth degree, to return or do a deal for repayment. At the end of the amnesty they will be hunted down and possessions will be taken in account. The sums involved we were told yesterday on on of the new stations that this is an equivalent to a 3-4 pence drop in income tax.
There is no mileage taking money through the front door to see it flowing faster out the back..it ain’t rocket science.
April 29, 2022
turboterrier, they don’t have to sell them off all the time, just award foreign competitors all the decent contracts and British companies contract. But why does a Conservative government do this every year?
April 29, 2022
You have to wonder whether some of the precipitate fall in sterling in the past few days isn’t the sound of investment cash rushing to safer havens.
April 29, 2022
Investment has always been lower than required in this country. Quick profits top all, driven by the Stock Exchange. Twenty something analysts always require companies to produce more and more profit every year and CEO’s (who lets face it are mostly just managers, not entrepreneurs) see their job as enriching themselves before moving on to the next target, often having cocked up the current one. R&D even when successful here is often sold off to foreign firms to develop because companies see a quicker profit in it. I remember from the 60’s and 70’s one car manufacturer saying ‘ When times are good we don’t need to invest in new machinery etc and when things are bad we can’t afford to’. That seems to sum up UK management in the UK. Silicon valley would never have happened here – we innovate, sell off for profit great companies, mostly to foreigners and follow others.
April 29, 2022
The trillions of pounds needed to achieve Net Zero targets have not been addressed, and a report by a
think tank close to the tories has already injected the fear factor into any logic that might be left in the government’s magic box. Reported on the Not a Lot of People Know That website this week, https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/net-zero-climate-boris-johnson-b2064371.html
They are saying that 1.3 million votes will be lost to the Tories or any party trying to impact the Net Zero plan. I wonder how confident they will be when all the consumers start to get even more increases on their utility bills and the lights are going out and making the of choice of eat or heat. The fastest-growing sector on the high street will be food banks. All are reporting demands in supply and services. Pinch pinch ….This is Great Britain in 2022? No it must be a dream
April 29, 2022
We discover the probable origins of the PM’s claim that renewables are lowering energy bills, which is one of the outright lies in that article. The survey itself is the usual Bernard Woolley: “Do you agree that opponents of net zero are in the pay of fossil fuel companies?” gets asked, but not “Do you agree that proponents of net zero are in the pay of green interests?”. The latter proposition has a lot of evidence behind it, whereas evidence for the former is scant. The survey appears to be more about the marketing of net zero: assessing how well the propaganda is doing, and which lines to take to try to enhance it.
Of course the reality is that most renewables have benefited enormously from rising market prices while continuing to be subsidised generously on top under the ROC scheme, and that those on CFDs have just had an inflation index uplift to their guaranteed strike prices. The most recently commissioned sections of offshore wind farm at Hornsea 2 and Triton Knoll have yet to commence their CFDs, and it is increasingly doubtful that they ever will, given that market prices are far above their CFD strike prices. The overall result is that renewables are contributing handsomely to rising prices, and the tiny scale of repayments under CFDs is not going to change that, and we are unlikely to see the benefit of much vaunted cheaper CFDs.
April 29, 2022
St John opposes almost all of his governments and partys actions but he will still ask and expect us to vote Tory.
St John lives with tbe country being ruined economically and politically, and morally and spiritually by the leaders who are not prepared to act to defend our way of life against the subversion extremely active and widespread in society.
Pretence of opposition is all we get because no-one must be upset by any strong or threatening words can they.
April 29, 2022
Prangwizard – Steady on, old chap! Sir John has some excellent ideas and has rightly been given a knighthood. But not sainthood, surely?
April 29, 2022
Maybe the Chancellor could apply a windfall tax just to those energy companies who have increased their standing charges over and above inflation. It is reasonable for the variable element to increase as the cost of the raw material (e.g. gas) does, but there is no justification for doing the same for the fixed cost element.
As an example, the daily dual fuel standing charge on my bill is about double what it was 2 years ago.
April 29, 2022
Which company Peter? I think this is a reasonable suggestion too.
April 29, 2022
The standing charges have been increased for two reasons: to pay for the costs of bankruptcy arising from the OFGEM cap that didn’t allow companies to recover their costs when they spiralled out of control last summer, due to failures of wind and lack of capacity and extra gas use; and because OFGEM has changed the rules on how network costs are allocated, with consumers now picking up the bill almost entirely via standing charges, instead of the cost being spread over actual usage. This is immediately a penalty on poorer households. OFGEM should be instructed to return to the previous methodology as a minimum.
This is going to be an ongoing issue, because net zero demands very substantial investment in transmission to deliver distant wind farm output to consumers – National Grid recently admitted in justification for a new power line in East Anglia that the lines currently carry up to 3,200MW, but they expect an additional 15,000MW of renewable generation to be connected locally, plus 4,500MW of interconnectors.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/electricity-transmission/network-and-infrastructure/infrastructure-projects/east-anglia-green-network-reinforcement
These implications of National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios make them quite unfit to be in charge of our future plans, which lean heavily on growing the Grid’s business.
At the distribution level there is the issue of all the additional cabling and transformer capacity needed to provide power for EVs and heat pumps. It seems unjust that poorer households should pay for the rich to have faster chargers for their Teslas on their drives, or that some will be forced sooner than others into heat pumps with all that entails. I do not believe that OFGEM has given proper consideration to these issues. Of course, if the rich have to pay the full cost for their connections they might take a different view, but for now they are being heavily subsidised once again by the poor.
April 29, 2022
The fundamental economic issue for the UK is trading. The government in all its forms is holding on to the EU as much as it can. Boris fails his promises to solve his NI sovereignty betrayal and now JRM gives in to EU pressure and thinking over food imports. Failures on our fishing rights, encouragement of dependence on energy imports justified by green insanity are all the same.
If we are to survive there should be no more talk of ‘inward investment’ which I have called prostitution of our nation.
The policy should be to increase home manufacturing. We must reopen the making of just about all the things we did make and now buy from overseas. Elitist arrogance says why should we dirty our hands – leave others to dirty theirs. They think we have money and always will, but that’s fantasy.
If we don’t there will be serious suffering. It is beginning but the elites don’t realise – they are protected and just cannot understand, and the PM is only interested in personal publicity.
April 29, 2022
Labour enjoying a 13% lead over the Conservatives, a notification flying in from the right of my screen tells me. Oh, but who could replace the election-winning Johnson, so many Conservatives cry? The ‘election-winning’ Johnson’s shine has worn off. Any replacement could narrow a 13% gap.
April 30, 2022
Haven’t you picked up the general drift?
Brexit…Trump…WWIII-in-all-but-name?
People sense – correctly in my view – that the Tories are somehow woven into this.
April 30, 2022
Another of your ridiculous conspiracy theories NHL
April 29, 2022
A one off windfall tax on energy companies will go into the black hole of the treasury and doesn’t help the people pay their bills
While fracking for shale gas will increase security, capacity and supply, reducing people’s bills and creating extra long term revenue for the treasury
I wonder which way our socialist chancellor will go
April 29, 2022
+10
April 29, 2022
The last sentence is right and it is true of so much that this govt does.
Endless tinkering, complexity and high taxes drive everyone away. Not only investors but those who don’t need to work are not only doing so, as the media suggest, because WFH suddenly made them realise that it was more relaxing not to work.
Everyone already knew that. They simply don;t want to bother when the govt takes more than half of their income. And wastes it on socialist nonsense.
April 30, 2022
Globalist New World Order agenda – You will all be happy!!!!!!