Fossil fuel companies are once again reporting bumper windfall profits for the first three months of the year, £4 billion in profit for BP and £7.7 billion for Shell. During the same period, Shell handed £14 to shareholders and invested £6 in fossil fuels for every £1 invested in renewables. BP paid shareholders ten times more than they invested in low carbon infrastructure. For companies like Shell and BP, the future of our planet will always come a distant second to their profit margins and delivering for shareholders.
Last year, an estimated 3.2 million Brits on prepayment meters ran out of credit: 1 person every 10 seconds. In the same period, Shell and BP made combined profits of £55 billion: £17,440 every 10 seconds. Labour is calling on the Government to strengthen the Windfall Tax by taxing oil and gas profits at higher rates, scrapping investment loopholes that hand money back to fossil fuel companies and backdating the tax to early 2022 to capture the profits missed whilst the Tories dragged their feet. The Government needs to shift the cost of rising energy prices and climate breakdown away from struggling households and onto profiting corporations.
