One in five households are already in
fuel poverty and that number could
double in October when the energy
price cap rises again, the boss of one of
Britain’s biggest energy companies has
warned.
Michael Lewis, the chief executive of
E.On, said that high gas and electricity
prices could persist for at least another
year and a half of “unprecedented”
hardship and the number of house-
holds in fuel poverty could double in
the autumn.
Fuel poverty is defined as spending
more than 10 per cent of disposable
income on energy bills to maintain an
adequate standard of warmth.
The Treasury is drawing up plans for
a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is looking
at ways of imposing a temporary levy to
ease the cost-of-living crisis.
Three cabinet ministers have now
come out against what has been criti-
cised as an “unconservative” tax as the
Tories squabble over the measure. The
chancellor is under pressure to act,
however, after YouGov polling for The
Times indicated that the levy would be
wildly popular. Seven in ten Britons are
in favour of a windfall tax.
Sunak is looking at a mechanism used
by George Osborne, his predecessor as
chancellor, to raise money from energy
companies, which are engaging in a
spending spree of share buybacks after
their profits surged. Sunak is also seeking
inspiration from Margaret Thatcher,
who recouped £2.4 billion for the
Andrew Ellson
Consumer Affairs Correspondent
George Grylls Political Reporter
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government. Page 35Monday May 23 2022 | thetimes.co.uk | No 73790ERIC GAILLARD/REUTERSFilm trailer Sharon Stone, 64, seemed intent on covering up the red carpet as she arrived in a Dolce & Gabbana gown for the
screening of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s Les Amandiers (Forever Young) at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. Coen’s misfire, page 10exchequer from a 1980s raid on North
Sea oil and gas.
Osborne said yesterday that he ex-
pected Sunak would impose a windfall
tax. He said he thought a better way of
addressing the cost of living was with
targeted support for lower-income
households. He questioned Sunak’s
plans to raise corporation tax.
Osborne predicted that the Treasury
would force through a windfall tax on
oil and gas companies despite opposi-
tion from No 10. “I think he [Sunak] will
do one but I have to say it’s not really
addressing the serious fiscal problem
the country is going to have in the next
two or three years. It’s a one-off scoop
of money,” he told The Andrew Neil
Show on Channel 4. “You have an inter-
esting dynamic where, apparently,
No 10 don’t want one and No 11 do.”
Downing Street has found itself
caught out by a cost-of-living crisis,
with spiralling inflation hitting a 40-
year high of 9 per cent last month.
Lewis blamed the war in Ukraine for
most of the energy problems and
warned customers that the situation
would worsen in the months to come.
“In my 30 years in energy I have
never seen prices increase at this rate,”
he told the BBC. “I think for the next
18 months we’re likely to see higher
prices. That’s already baked in, certain-
ly in October and probably into next
year as well. I think the longer-term
development depends on what
happens in the war in Ukraine, what
happens with Putin. I have no idea how
that will develop.”
He added that one million of E.On’s
customers were behind with their bills
Continued on page 2, col 3The NHS should allow consultants to
work from home and train clerical staff
to conduct cancer scans in an overhaul
of how people are employed, the gov-
ernment’s former cancer tsar has said.
Professor Sir Mike Richards said that
the health service must adopt a “new
workforce model” if it is to succeed in
bringing down record waiting lists of
6.4 million patients, including the
recruitment of school leavers, who
would otherwise be “stacking shelves”.
He called for groundbreaking
changes, including handing greater
responsibility to staff with no medical
qualifications and allowing doctors to
work from home by monitoringCall for WFH medical consultants
Eleanor Hayward Health Correspondent patients virtually. NHS leaders have
repeatedly said that a shortage of
110,000 staff, including 40,000 nurses
and 8,000 doctors, will make it impos-
sible to meet government targets for
clearing the Covid care backlog.
Richards, a former chief inspector of
hospitals who remains influential in
government, said that progress could
be achieved as long as revolutionary
changes in staffing were introduced
“across the board”, adding: “It is a
question of using every lever rather
than just saying it can’t be done... it can
be done, but it’s going to be hard work.”
He told The Times that hospitals had
previously been “too reluctant to
employ admin and clerical staff”, but
they could be trained for jobs such asoperating scanning machines in cancer
diagnostic centres, to free doctors’ time.
“We could get people in at the
starting rates — the school leavers who
would otherwise go and stack shelves
or be at the tills of supermarkets. We
need to make sure that people see that
healthcare is a very rewarding field,” he
said. “We’re bringing in apprentices,
this is a new career pathway. You can
learn it on the job, get paid on the job,
and then work up the ladder.
“There’s a lot we can do by bringing in
support workers so that we can free up
radiographers, for example.”
Richards, a world-renowned oncolo-
gist, was national cancer director at the
Department of Health from 1999 to
Continued on page 2, col 5Fuel poverty
predicted to
hit 40% of
households
Sunak makes plans for temporary windfall tax
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(based on 7 Day Print Pack)City take title with
incredible fightback
Three goals in six minutes deny Liverpool
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