The government has U-turned on its resistance to a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, freeing up Rishi Sunak to announce a new emergency package to help households deal with the cost-of-living crisis.
The spending will be funded in part by a “temporary targeted profits levy” on gas and oil companies amid what Sunak described as a period of “extraordinary profits” as a result of “surging global commodity prices, driven in part by Russia’s war”.
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The government expects the levy to raise about £5bn of revenue, with oil and gas companies set to be charged at a rate of 25% on profits.
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Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?
- The US is reeling from the deadliest school shooting in a decade and its second deadliest in history.
- The total number of people in the UK found to have been infected with monkeypox rose to 90.
- Viktor Orbán declared a state of emergency in Hungary and introduced a wide-ranging windfall tax to combat its own cost-of-living crisis.
- Joe Biden said the US would intervene militarily if China attacked Taiwan.
- A minister in Emmanuel Macron’s new government denied claims that he raped two women, saying that his physical disability would make it impossible.
- And experts warned that more countries could face an economic collapse like the one currently hitting Sri Lanka.
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