Cost of Living Crisis: Keir Starmer on proposals to reduce bills by taxing energy companies

Sir Keir Starmer has set out Labour’s £29 billion emergency plan to stop energy bills rising over the winter – paid for in part by an extension of the windfall levy on the profits of the oil and gas companies.

The Labour leader said that under his party’s “fully-funded” proposals, consumers would not pay “a penny more” for their gas and electricity over the coming months, saving the average household £1,000.

He said his plan was a direct response to a “national economic emergency” which had left millions of families across the country fearful as to how they would cope.

[clebruckus]

its not a cost of living crises, its a profit from the poor crises, time to end this political charade

[vermiculusnova]

The Government has every resource it needs to fix a lot of our problems. The solution isn't to give the State more money & power, the problem is we have a political class who hold the general public in utter contempt

[johnhodge]

Slight snag in Keir's proposal is that labour are not in power.

[davidwarnes]

How can you controle this when we buy our energy from other countries, they will in a shortage 8ncrease prices, sorry labour you have done everything to stop us being energy self sufficient, and these are proposals .

[davidfernandes]

Cost of living, cost of living blah blah blah. The biggest toll on most peoples cost living is housing! And guess what, whether or not it's Labour or Conservatives in parliament, nobody is going to do anything about it because 80% of the MPs are Landlords. It's an absolute joke!

[samg]

Sometimes I think he only says stuff that he'd never do just to make the Tories look even worse than they already are, I never get the sense he actually believes in any of it

[mikecdammit]

Why not tax companies a lot more when they reach a certain threshold. The bigger you become the bigger the wallet you need.

[Pauliewalnuts_]

He has absolutely no intention on doing any of this

[sanesmith]

Anything extra the energy companies pay the government gets passed onto the consumer!

[Al_Pollock]

Very easy to announce plans when you have no prospect of getting into power for at least a year.
The problem with windfall taxes on utility providers is they can just raise their prices even further to pay for the taxation.

[yetidodger]

the windfall tax is then offset by massive tax relief for the energy companies so they will actually stand to make money from it.

[Josh-gdew]

This is because of the wef green deal, this is their build back better plan

[winston]

The problem with these politicians is that they want to tax you for everything they can think of until you are on the breadline.

[alexdennison]

if they do this then energy companies will just put it up even further make it even worse for us the poor

[aidandesilva]

Look, I know we want more from Starmer. But right now the step he is taking, while we would ask for a leap - is far far better than what Boris or any of the leadership candidates are offering. He is the only person really offering to stop the rise in the Winter.

We need to support this. Still ask for more, but the fact is this is far better than what the current government is offering and pressuring THEM to do more is just as important if not more.

[Stuboy]

We need Eddie Dempsey Corbyn or Mick Lynch in charge of Labour, not a working man?? Millionaire Barrister

[keithharrison]

Usual Labour mantra! Tax all the successful ones to pay the not successful ones to carry on in their wasteful and dependant existence!

[kryp]

If the UK can fix a gas shortage supply with tax and government support, give me one good reason why Africa can't fix their food shortage with similar measures? Sure, there might not be enough gas to heat everyone's homes this winter, but that doesn't matter because the government can just legislate that there's enough gas for everyone. Right?

[yingxunzhou]

The real problem is lacking of energy supply so electricity generators can pass their cost onto retailer and not worried about sales. This is due to lack of vision and investment from over decade ago. Government is squeezing the most visible part of the whole supply chain - retailer, so they can win the voters. A lot of people doesn’t seem understand energy retailer and energy generation are completely separate entities.

[vermiculusnova]

Or you could lower everyone's taxes to give then breathing room for their finances. But that means the State wouldn't get as much money on their gravy train would it Keir? To hell with the lot of them