Labour’s front bench is entitled to crow. Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband have been banging on about the need for – and fairness of – a windfall tax on North Sea oil and producers since January. Since then, Rishi Sunak has stumbled from outright hostility to, now, a full U-turn. The fact the chancellor couldn’t bring himself to utter the word “windfall”, and instead labelled his scheme an “energy profits levy”, only adds to the political sport.
But here’s the thing: Treasury wonks have come up with a very different design for Sunak’s levy. Is the government version better? Well, it aims to raise more money, which is an important difference. We wait to see how much of the Treasury’s “around £5bn” materialises over the next year, but the figure is at least twice as large as any mentioned by Labour, which had merely suggested an extra 10% surcharge.
