It’s official: subjecting oil and gas companies to a 78 pence tax rate (which is corporation tax plus the government’s windfall tax) doesn’t increase energy prices in the UK. That is what Ed Miliband told us on Sky News this morning, so it must be true. He will no doubt be hoping that we don’t look at the figures published by his own department which show that gas consumers in Britain pay an average of 10.17 pence per kilowatt-hour while US consumers – where the oil and gas industry is encouraged rather than taxed to near-extinction – pay the equivalent of 4.04 pence.
Sky's @WilfredFrost questions the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband on whether UK gas prices would decrease if the tax rate of 78% on energy companies was lowered by the government. https://t.co/TC2ROCL7wW
— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 24, 2025
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/w1QPD01XbZ
Ed’s argument – which is a standard argument put forward by advocates of ditching fossil fuels in favour of wind and solar – is that gas is a commodity traded on international markets, the prices in which are fixed by what he keeps calling (although he didn’t use the term in this morning’s interview) ‘fossil fuel dictators’.
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