Thursday 11 August 2022 11:10 PM Liz Truss hints at ruling out higher windfall tax for energy firms trends now

Thursday 11 August 2022 11:10 PM Liz Truss hints at ruling out higher windfall tax for energy firms trends now
Thursday 11 August 2022 11:10 PM Liz Truss hints at ruling out higher windfall tax for energy firms trends now

Thursday 11 August 2022 11:10 PM Liz Truss hints at ruling out higher windfall tax for energy firms trends now

Liz Truss suggested last night that she would rule out a windfall tax on energy giants if she became prime minister as she declared that profit was not a dirty word.

The Tory leadership frontrunner said the Left-wing approach of ‘bashing business’ would drive away investment from the UK.

Asked about the billions now being made by oil and gas firms, she replied: ‘I don’t think profit is a dirty word. And the fact it has become a dirty word in our society is a massive problem.’

She told 2,000 Tory Party members: ‘In this audience, we have hundreds of people who run businesses and make a profit and I think that’s a good thing.’

Miss Truss spoke out after other ministers appeared to warn the power companies that a bigger windfall tax was still on the table if they failed to plough their profits into homegrown power generation to bolster the UK’s energy security.

Miss Truss conceded that if the companies broke the rules they should be held to account, but went on: ‘The way we bandy around the word profit as if it is something that’s dirty and evil, we shouldn’t be doing that as Conservatives. We’re playing into the hands of people like Jeremy Corbyn, who want to completely undermine our way of life.’

Liz Truss suggested last night that she would rule out a windfall tax on energy giants if she became prime minister as she declared that profit was not a dirty word

Liz Truss suggested last night that she would rule out a windfall tax on energy giants if she became prime minister as she declared that profit was not a dirty word

At the sixth of the 12th party husting events – the biggest so far, with party members filling a conference hall at Cheltenham Racecourse – the Foreign Secretary also hit out at Gordon Brown-style approaches to tackle the rising cost of living.

‘My first port of call is always reducing taxes, because I think having a money-go-round where you take off money in taxes and give it back in benefits is fundamentally a bad approach,’ she said. The warning from other ministers followed a dire prediction that average household bills could top £5,000 per year.

The Chancellor summoned bosses to Downing Street to pressure them to plough their profits into homegrown power generation to bolster UK energy security.

Nadhim Zahawi, joined by Boris Johnson and Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, told the executives the Government ‘continues to evaluate the extraordinary profits’ in the industry and that they must ‘act in the interest of the country in the face of rising prices’.

The comments were seen as a thinly veiled threat that the current £5billion windfall tax could be extended if firms hand bumper payouts to shareholders, and do not invest profits into renewables, nuclear and biomass.

A Treasury source said that ‘extraordinarily high bills will ultimately damage energy companies’. Yesterday, experts at the energy consultancy Auxilione said they expected household bills to hit £4,467 per year from January, and £5,038 from April.

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