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Abena speaks on the Windfall Tax Bill

The cost-of-living crisis remains the biggest issue facing the country right now. While the Tory leadership candidates trade insults and trash their own Government’s woeful record, I know that many families across Erith and Thamesmead are still struggling to make ends meet.

On the 11th July I closed the Second Reading debate of the Windfall Tax Bill on behalf of the Shadow Treasury Team.

In that debate, I spoke about the financial pressures that many people in Erith and Thamesmead and across the country are facing. Food, fuel and energy bills continue to rise, and I know many are already worrying about the winter that lies ahead.

So it was a relief that the Government finally followed Labour’s lead and u-turned on the windfall tax. However, since Labour first called for the windfall tax on oil and gas producers, energy bills for typical households have risen by a shocking £700, inflation has rocketed to its highest level in 40 years, and, of course, people’s taxes have gone up as the Government have pressed ahead with the national insurance increase. In that period, oil and gas producers’ profits have soared. Indeed, we estimate that between Labour first calling for the windfall tax in January and the former Chancellor and soon-to-be former Prime Minister finally accepting our arguments at the end of May, nearly £2 billion of tax revenue could have been raised to help people with the cost-of-living crisis.

In that time, Conservative MPs voted against our plans for a windfall tax not once, not twice, but three times. Ministers repeatedly claimed that such a plan would not work. Famously, the current Chancellor said that oil and gas producers were “already struggling”.

It is shameful that it took the Government so long to come to their senses and finally do the right thing. That is yet more evidence, if we needed it after the past couple of weeks, that this Tory Government is on its last legs: out of touch, out of ideas and now truly out of time. With the windfall tax and with so many other issues, it is Labour that leads and the Conservative party that follows.

You can watch my speech using the following link here, and you can read my speech here.