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Isn't Shell part Dutch owned, 60% I think? How do you tax a majority owned company on its World Wide earnings?? Just another Labour idea to woo their deserting voters! There are two sides to the fuel poverty problem, one is the cost of fuel which is due to the government's lack of planning for the decreasing output from the North Sea. The second is the pitifull UK pension, which this government has done nothing to increase, and which leaves no surplus for any rainy day (much like government finances). No matter what the problem is, it is always somebody else's fault, this time it is the fuel companies!

Blatant populist and revenue raising mission by a government that has over-spent, overestimated its income and is looking for anywhere to scratch a little cash from. Conjure an image of grannies dying of hypothermia, that will do the trick. Cue outrage at gross profits. It just demonstrates a total lack of understanding of how private industry operates in the world economy.

Of course, it will appeal to those who have overspent themselves when the times were good and not saved - nor been encouraged to save - by a government quite happy to encourage (by their own example) a debt-ridden society.

Does the government ever feel the need to pay back the ludicrous amount of tax they take when energy prices were relatively low? No, of course they don't. Energy investment has a long lead time: it is a risky business. Yet the government takes by far the largest slice of the pie for no risk at all.

Why oh why are we being governed by idiots who think they are still in the school playground?

Cries of "its not fair!" deserve the response of "sorry chum, that's life!".

If the UK wants to show itself as an utterly unreliable business partner (having already raised taxes on North Sea oil production in 2005 and despite taking 75% of the revenue already, according to the BG CEO on your programme two days ago) then there would be no better way than imposing a windfall tax.

The oil companies will simply redomicile overseas, depriving the UK of future tax revenue and stop investing here. A windfall tax would not only solve absolutely nothing, it would (at this stage) be immensely damaging to the international reputation of the UK......

.....perhaps Mugabe had a point when he referred to Brown as a "pygmy" on the world stage?

I must dismiss the first two posts as apologists for the oil companies, they are probably lackeys for them in a subversive PR role...well, you both failed miserably. Years ago when there was a semblence of restraint in the energy business there was amodicom of legislation, not anymore, just sheer unfettered fill yer boots capitalism and devil take the hindmost. Labour has gone so far down the Tory road of mad PFI's and obscene profits while the majority of us have to put wooly sweaters on, so, yes, it's about time as 90% of the British public want it. Why don't the churches have more to say on this madness? They are quick to jump in if there is a touch of gay-bashing going on yet when we are scared to switch on a two bar electric fire as company profits go through another roof they remain coy. Discuss.

The government would be bonkers mad to impose such windfall taxes.

I would seriously consider leaving the country if they do, because such short termism as an energy policy will drive investment elsewhere in the long term. And the pain of the ongoing energy crisis will be felt much harder in the future, as oil depletion really hits.

Also why are profits considered so evil? As a nation much of our pensions are tied up in these companies. So we'd be robbing Peter to pay Paul and for what? A long slow train wreck of ever increasing prices, and supply problems at least partly caused by government induced underinvestment.

And I say this as someone who drives to work, and I pay £1600 annually for my energy bills!

If you want to consume, pay up, if you want to save, conserve. The price of energy is high because we have gotten used to gorging on practically free and plentiful energy. Energy supply is finite, and we simply demand too much of it! So if blame is to be laid, it should not be on the energy companies but on ourselves for our unsustainable leveraged* and rampant consumerism.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that taxes should be cut to increase investment in energy supplies, renewables and gas storage. We will only be glad of it in the years to come.

Disincentivising investment in a sector at a time when it most needs it is quite simply totally idiotic.

*If you want to lay blame on the capital system, let it be on the banks for their careless lending practices of the last decade.

THE STRING THEORY OF MONEY

When nothingness vibrates with confidence, money comes into being, inside computers and in the 'money-mind'. The greater the excitement (i.e. the higher the frequency of vibration) the greater weight accrues to the 'holding'.

I seem to remember Douglas Adams - the last sage of a doomed planet - had something to say about money.

A windfall tax on the oil companies would be pure populism - a desperate scramble to claw back a few supporters. We delude ourselves it we imagine that they won't find a way to recover the cost and, since they don't control the global oil price, there is only one other way - from the consumer.

A windfall tax on the power industry is another matter. British Gas' price increase of 35% is grotesque and, if the regulator can't jump on them, perhaps the Treasury should.

Also, in this age of political uncertainty, a cynic might be forgiven for wondering whether floating autumn statement policies at this point says more about Darling's search for job security than anything else.

Why don't the Government put a windfall tax on our energy companies , so their share value falls , so other EU companies can buy them even cheaper , they already have the weak £ to help them !

We sow what a windfall tax did to the water companies , most of them were taken over by EU companies shortly afterwards .

What would be the windfall tax from all the share dealings ?

And there's no end in sight: this morning Total posted Q2 profits up 20%-39%[1] - Le Monde reports that Total's half-year profits are up 15% to nearly EUR 7bio (just under GBP 5.5bio).

I'm not sure that a windfall tax on companies such as British Gas, whose half-year profits were down 69% to GBP 166mio[2], would be any use. That'd make another price hike even more likely, and in comparison to the primary oil/gas sector they're peanuts in this game...

[1] and
[2]

Windfall tax?

Back to old labour bash and tax success?

Do the population think that the companies will absorb the charge and not pass it on to the customer?

If they were taxing the corner shop do the customers think the small shop keeper would absorb it?

You can fool some of the people all the time?

Good grief!

Oh and bash the oil companies? Yeah right most money is already taxed where its earned - overseas at 75 percent or more.

The media never quote the amount the oil companies already pay in tax.

So who suffers when oil taxes go up? The oil companies will raise prices to recoup and the end customer pays. (remember fuel duty? = tax)

If not then the dividend is cut and the shareholders (pension funds) = population get hurt.

When will people realise there is no free lunch.

Maybe we need another dose of Maggies handbag and purse? Afterall another generation has grown up without that dose of reality.

Too much schooling of tick the right answers so nobody thinks anymore?

Good grief.

Well, I have to say that at least Alistair Darling is consistent in being a total failure at being our chancellor of the exchequer.

Although a windfall tax might sound attractive to some of the New Labour types that see simply headlines and the promise of an increase in the share of votes, taxing the companies at this stage would be a total disaster.

As has been stated, the companies may simply put up the prices again to recoup the profits they have lost, meaning the poor will suffer disproportionately again, let us for a moment forget reinvestment. We also have the spectre of them simply domiciling themselves overseas and reducing the long term tax take to the treasury even further.

The best thing the Govt. could do in the current situation is to ensure that those companies that distribute energy to consumers are totally independent from the companies that produce it, and also to ensure that there is a transparent wholesale market, where trades made are a matter of public record and lastly, break the price of natural gas from that of oil.

My own personal view is that the energy sector is one that needs to be in public ownership, along with health, schools, water, transport and telecoms. They are far too important to allow commercial concerns to override the economic and social interests of the nation.

I think Mark Urban may have set a new world record for uses of 'of course' in one sentence.

#14 - manchester me wrote:

'I think Mark Urban may have set a new world record for uses of 'of course' in one sentence.'

Fascinating - and nothing whatever to do with Paul's Idle Scrawl.

@4, leftieoddbod

If these power companies were nationalized the price increases would have to be - percentage-wise - *higher*

The power companies have absorbed more than a doubling of gas prices, whilst passing on more modest increases to the consumer.

Were this a nationalized system then yes, the prices would _possibly_ be lower - public sector costs tend to be greater than private sector ones and you'd have to find a replacement for all those tax receipts, so there's no guarantee of lower prices there.

However the change in prices would have to be absorbed entirely by the taxpayer - via increased subsidies, increased taxes, increased prices, decreased wages/pensions, job cuts or public borrowing. Given the current economic climate, pick your poison on *that* one.

So you are, in effect, arguing that instead of a 35% rise we should be facing a *100%* rise - albeit with, in a *best* case scenario, a somewhat lower starting price.

In the worst case scenario, you've put even more people into fuel poverty then British Gas and others.

In reality, we'd probably be just as worse off as we are now.

I suspect to do so would be a mistake in current circumstances, and not the panacea to raise much needed extra income for the Exchequeor. But raising additional income, not increasing borrowing, is the more long term answer in closing the gap between expenditure and income. An mild increase in direct income tax above £30,000 might show application, though unlikely be a complete answer.

Perhaps we also need strike a carrot, not the stick; with build more than already planned gas storage facilities; approve clean coal fired power stations; increase further wind and other renewable energy sources. Travelling right across Europe to Istanbul this summer, every country had groups of wind-turbines, 10-30 in number, across farmland, and they were not sited as a noise nuisance, nor were they an 'eye-sore'. There are two alongside the A13 in industrial 'Ford country' and they are not inappropriate or loud.

As for storage, which has been accused for the cause of why our future gas prices need be higher than Europe; can we not pump newly purchased supplies, from Norway for example, into the underground resevoirs from which our current depleted supplies are stored or extracted?

Why haven't successive HM Governments, given this fuel price crises is not a 'new' surprise but has been signposted since the early eighties if not earlier, led the manufacturing companies to invest in exploring new more efficient diesel/petrol/lpg gas/ethonal/alcohol, and electric fuels, to power our vehicles??

How is it that we are still led by unimaginative donkeys, albeit we are not lions, still, since the First World War?

What seems to be forgotten is that the "windfall" profits likely to be extracted by the government in taxes are in great part payments made by consumers to the energy companies.It could be portrayed by sceptics to therefore be in the government's interests that energy prices surge and companies' profits rise so an even stealthier stealth tax can be levied.However that would probably even be beyond this manipulative government to engineer.
So therefore if tax is to be levied then i think it should be accompanied with new/or higher subsidies for house occupiers to encourage them to install more efficient insulation or heating systems in their homes that will decrease their bills in the future.
Then the windfall tax would be construed as a genuine green tax for which the government could claim credit and furthermore would benefit consumers in a direct but also contructive way.
However i suspect the government having created fiscal deficits by it's profligate spending habits will merely use the proceeds to offset borrowings.

Jokes aside Gavin.. how many people today contracted MRSA, Cdif and other super bugs through lack of separate rooms in NHS (wards and bays are obsolete in most countries) and lack of the pre admittance test for MRSa before the patient is admitted - so that the paitient can be isolated if carrying the bug. I understand the test costs £5 that the NHS will not spend. They do test in private hospitals. Please return to this horror subject if the government and BBc Trust allows that is!!