Cost of living crisis UK: Windfall tax on energy firms would only be a sticking plaster

Norway kept taxation on oil and gas at 78% and during the two years of record low prices, Shell paid £4.589bn to Norway while in the UK, the company was awarded £179m in tax rebates.

High taxation didn’t stop investment in the Norwegian half of the North Sea and in 2021 Norway earned almost £25 billion from oil and gas taxes whereas the latest GERS report attributed a notional deficit of £250 million as Scotland’s share of UK petroleum tax. With Brent Crude at $90 and record gas prices, Norway will earn much more this year.

Tuesday’s Channel Four News programme pointed out that in 2019, for each barrel of oil the UK received $1.72 in tax while Norway received to $21.35 In 2017 for each barrel of oil the UK received $1.86 in tax while Norway received $13.53.

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Shell paid $1.8 billion in tax to Norway in 2020 but received £99.1 million in tax back in from the UK gov. The UK was the only country where Shell operates where it didn’t pay tax, according to the company’s annual report on payments to governments. In 2019, BP paid no tax on its UK North Sea oil and gas business. BP’s effective corporation tax rate was minus 54%, compared to UK’s corporation tax rate of 19%. Source (BP’s 2019 tax report, page 47).

An independent Scotland would not be dependent on oil and gas revenues, but if taxed at Norwegian levels, they would help with high energy bills and could pay a much higher state pension such as in Iceland, Finland, Luxemburg, Ireland and other so called small nations that prosper without the broad shoulders of the UK.

The UK has the worst state pension in the developed world and our state pension payments are certainly not guaranteed within the UK, as since the 2014 referendum the Tories have extended the retirement age and Rishi Sunak, who ditched the £20 a week universal credit uplift, has also reneged on the “triple lock” to increase pensions in line with inflation.

Mary Thomas

Edinburgh

A VERY interesting contribution from Jo Bloomfield (Letters, Feb 9), who is quite correct that energy prices will rise by 4% in France. This is occasioned by two related factors. Firstly, energy is only partially privatised in France, but the state holds around 70% control.

This is important because this allows them to regulate prices passed to customers – unlike here, where, “thanks” to Thatcher`s privatisations, the “Market” has total say, and a limp Ofgem makes innocuous disapproving comments in the background.

Secondly, price rises which become necessary are indexed to inflation. This means that utilities are disallowed to raise prices beyond the current rate of inflation.

I remember, when in France some few years ago, that Gaz de France thought that they would raise retail price to customers by 11%. This was broadly in line with a similar rise in UK, which, of course, our suppliers got away with. But the French government responded by reminding them who owned them.

Gaz de France subsequently was allowed to raise their prices by 4% - in line with inflation in France at the time.

Brian York

Dumfries

THE consequences are too serious, for all our lives, to be considered just a cynical joke.

While Britain is still the president of the COP, held in Glasgow late last year, it simultaneously manages to give the go ahead for a coal mine in Wales.

A new North Sea oilfield, Cambo, is only delayed because Shell might have been persuaded by protests to switch its investment to windfarms.

At the same time Britain encourages yet another company to begin drilling the Abigail oil field, in the North Sea 166 kilometres from Peterhead.

For readers also interested in Apartheid connections the Abigail field will be developed by Israeli-owned Ithaca Energy wholly owned by Tel Aviv-traded Delek group.

However I think it is also important that readers wanting to see self determination for a different Scotland consider one with a very different economic foundation than one based on oil and carbon pollution.

We also need our governments! to correct the situation of Shell making $19 billion record profits last year and even more next when you add the latest hike in gas prices!

Norman Lockhart (ecosocialist.scot)

Innerleithen

I REALISE that Boris Johnson and new Downing Street communications head Gutto Harri know one another, having worked together before, but the account by Laura Kuenssberg of their first meeting does not tell me that Boris has changed or is intending to change – he continues to make fun of his office and of everyone who has lost loved ones and are still very angry and upset by his behaviour. He is simply not capable of change.

After learning of the abuse Keir Starmer suffered on the streets outside parliament and what was shouted at him, we still had Kwasi Kwarteng being the latest in a long line of ministers prepared to back up Johnson’s comments regarding Jimmy Savile – this was the latest dead cat released by Johnson and then kicked about the field by his “lieutenants”, thereby making themselves enablers of his behaviour.

We have seen two MPs murdered in recent years and Boris Johnson still refuses to realise words have consequences and gives credence to people who do not need wound up any more.

Would anyone seeing a new headteacher or consultant doctor or CEO or store manager expect them to introduce themselves in a duet singing I Will Survive? He is not running a karaoke night, he is supposed to be running this country.

I hope all those MPs sitting on the fence regarding letters of no confidence finally move and make their disgust at his actions clear.

Winifred McCartney

Paisley

I HAVE been surprised at some of the comments raised since the Scottish Tories unwittingly exposed the truth behind the UK pension provision. People, even our First Minister, speak of a moral obligation and seem to believe there is a pension fund. There is no such thing and anyone who relies on a moral obligation from the English nationalist government of whatever shade is naive indeed.

UK pensions are nothing more than a ponzi scheme on a massive scale. Ponzi schemes entice investors by promising big returns. In reality they use the payments of new contributors to pay earlier investors. These fraudulent schemes only work when there is an increasing number of contributors. When the number of suckers dries up, the crooks have to change the rules such as putting up the qualifying pension age to 67. As things get worse, such as immigrant workers forced to return home, they have no choice but to default altogether eg the triple lock.

I contributed to UK pensions for more than 40 years. My contributions were not invested to accrue benefits for my retirement, they were appropriated by the Treasury to pay for various schemes of Whitehall politicians. Having squandered my hard-earned cash, they now tell me that they will renege on my promised pension altogether. Not the first time they have broken a promise.

The good news for Scotland’s present and future pensioners is that an independent Scotland will not be in escrow to foreign multinationals nor vested interests. Both countries have a similar proportion of people of pensionable age to those of economically active age, about 17% to 66%. According to the government’s own figures, National Insurance in Scotland raised £11,476 million for the year to 2021. Pension payments were £8,517 million; a surplus of £2,957 million. So both countries will be in the same boat. Scottish taxpayers will not be paying English pensioners nor vice versa. Status quo. The question is: can England afford to pay its pensioners, particularly those who live overseas?

Ian Richmond

Springfield

IS the guy who keeps the door of Number Ten looking so shiny, on high alert to patch up the nail marks in the wood and teeth marks on the handle, when the embarrassment of a PM is finally removed?

J Angus McFadzen

Roslin

I AWAIT with eagerness the referendum bill that Alan Crocket anticipates on the 23rd February. Of course the phrase “in the coming weeks” could, as with similar pronouncements in the past, prove extremely elastic.

“Coming weeks” could mean months or even years if past performance on this subject is anything to go bye.

The excuses for further delay should be interesting, will it now be that the closeness of the local elections or wait ‘til the football season has finished or ‘til the cows come home? The possibilities are endless.

Rosemary Smith (Letters, Feb 8) says it all in her letter and I commend the sentiments expressed.

Drew Reid

Falkirk

I HAVE been aware for some time that the Faroe Islands operate as a maritime flag state, but for the first time I have seen a Faroese flagged trading vessel anchored in the bay under my front window.

READ MORE: This Scottish city has seen the biggest rental price rise in the UK

How does a Danish autonomous region of around 50,000 people have its own maritime jurisdiction, and incidentally the right to enter into international treaties such as fisheries agreements, when the devolved settlement for Scotland, with a population the size of the whole of Denmark, conveys neither of these? A long way to go to be the most powerful devolved government in the world!

Cameron Crawford

Rothesay

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