The Observer reports today that up to 100 Labour MPs are due to revolt over the refusal of the UK government to levy a windfall tax on the big energy companies:
"More than 100 Labour MPs are to demand a one-off tax on energy companies for refusing to pass on recent sharp cuts in oil prices to millions of customers.
The campaign - launched in a letter to The Observer - is evidence of mounting anger over claims that the 'big six' suppliers are putting profit margins ahead of the interests of householders as winter bites.
Compass, the centre-left pressure group co-ordinating the campaign, expresses 'grave concern' at how the companies are continuing to charge higher rates imposed earlier this year, 'in spite of sharp falls in the world price of crude oil'.
'Since 2000, gas prices have risen 100 per cent and electricity 61 per cent. Correspondingly, energy providers' profits have risen from £557m in 2003 to over £5bn today,' it says.
Compass is lining up Labour rebels behind a Commons motion laid in parliament on Friday that decries the 'massive unearned windfall profits' of the energy firms and demands immediate action to help hard-up customers.
Tabled by Leeds North East MP Fabian Hamilton, the motion says ministers should 'urgently introduce a new windfall tax, the revenues from which should be ring-fenced and targeted at homes in fuel poverty and used to start an adequately funded programme of home insulation to protect people from future price rises'.
Householders have had to endure two price increases for gas and electricity this year, pushing the average fuel bill up by more than £300."
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Is this a tax on Windfall Don Touhig, so that the taxpayer can claw back some of the money he's made on selling his second home in london, so that some of his profits can be redirected to the desperately poor members of his constituency, the one that has got poorer in his and his government's tenure?
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