6 2GM Monday May 23 2022 | the times
News
Rishi Sunak is considering measures
introduced by George Osborne and
Margaret Thatcher to impose a wind-
fall tax on oil and gas companies.
The chancellor is examining a tem-
porary tax increase introduced by
Osborne after the 2008 recession amid
a fractious cabinet row over the “un-
conservative” policy.
More than seven in ten Tory voters
support a windfall tax to ease the cost-
of-living crisis, YouGov polling for The
Times has shown. In total 73 per cent of
those who backed the party in 2019
support the measure — higher than the
national figure of 70 per cent in favour.
The polling shows the impact the
cost-of-living crisis is having on ordi-
nary households as more than half of
people say they are cutting back on eat-
ing out and 85 per cent say they are feel-
ing the impact of inflation.
Yesterday Anne-Marie Trevelyan,
the international trade secretary, be-
came the latest cabinet member to pub-
licly state their opposition to a windfall
tax, joining Sajid Javid, the health sec-
retary, and Brandon Lewis, the North-
ern Ireland secretary. “I don’t think a
windfall tax is the most efficient way to
do anything,” she told Times Radio. Sunshine on The Mall, lined with Union
News Politics
Sunak turns to the lady
for windfall tax boost
George Grylls Political Reporter “The windfall tax in and of itself is a
very short-term measure.”
However, despite personal misgiv-
ings, Sunak is now exploring ways to
claw back massive profits from the oil
and gas industry after senior executives
said a tax would not affect their invest-
ments in the energy sector. In the first
quarter of the year, BP’s underlying
profit more than doubled to almost
£5 billion, while Shell’s profits almost
tripled to £7.3 billion. The two giants
have used the profits on share buybacks
at a time when households are facing
soaring energy bills.
The Treasury is now looking at the
mechanisms used by Osborne and
Thatcher to impose a temporary tax on
the oil and gas industry.
In 2011 Osborne increased the sup-
plementary charge paid by energy
companies from 20 to 32 per cent.
The supplementary charge is an ad-
ditional levy for oil and gas companieson top of corporation tax. It was intro-
duced by Gordon Brown when he was
chancellor in 2002.
When Osborne increased the rate in
2011, he also introduced tax reliefs for
oil and gas companies to spend on
decommissioning oil rigs, and a similar
model to encourage investment in
green technologies could feature as
part of Sunak’s scheme.
In 2016 Osborne reduced the supple-
mentary charge back to 10 per cent,
where it remains now, but Sunak is
looking at plans to temporarily raise it
again. In the 1980s Thatcher imposed a
tax on North Sea oil and gas, which
raised £2.4 billion.
Boris Johnson has been reluctant to
endorse a windfall tax, which was origi-
nally proposed by Labour in January
when they suggested a 10 per cent rise
in corporation tax.
Jesse Norman, a former Treasury
minister who worked alongside Sunak
until he was removed in the September
reshuffle, pointed to the examples of
Thatcher and Osborne as he said the
arguments against a windfall tax were
“very weak”. He added: “It is also quite
wrong to say that a levy or tax of this
kind would be unconservative. On the
contrary, it would be both ethically
principled and pragmatic. Althoughshe rightly would not have liked the
idea much, I have no doubt Margaret
Thatcher in her pragmatic prime would
have levied a limited and temporary tax
of this kind.”
Jeremy Hunt, a former health secre-
tary and Tory leadership rival to John-
son, said he found it hard to accept the
profits of oil and gas companies. “I
think that we are hearing signs that all
options are on the table and so we need
to watch this space,” he told Sky News.
“Personally, I find it very difficult to jus-
tify those extra profits.”
As ministers defend themselves from
criticism over their handling of the
cost-of-living crisis, the Conservative
Party has released research showing Sir
Keir Starmer has pledged more than
£90 billion of spending commitments
without saying how it would be paid for
if Labour came to power. The analysis
shows that Labour has only accounted
for £7.5 billion of £100 billion promised.
Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the
Treasury, said: “This is the same old
Labour, spending taxpayers’ money
with no plan to pay for it. It’s time for
them to come clean to the British public
and tell them whether they will be rais-
ing taxes or borrowing our country into
oblivion.”
Call to cancel tax rise, page 18The chancellor is
under pressure to
act on the rising
cost of livingAustralian election is a
wake-up call, say Tories
George GryllsNo 10 must learn the lessons from the
Australian election results, senior
Conservatives said after the head of the
2019 Conservative campaign failed to
prevent the Labor Party from sweeping
to power in Canberra.
Isaac Levido, mastermind of the Tory
victory at the general election that won
Johnson his majority, was powerless to
stop Scott Morrison from slumping to
defeat, ending almost a decade of
Liberal government.
Morrison failed to win over lifelong
Liberal voters in affluent suburbs of
Sydney and Melbourne, who turned
their back on the party after several
sleaze scandals.
Environmentally focused independ-
ents were able to capitalise on public
anger at Morrison’s response to the
climate catastrophe and bushfires
which raged across the country in 2020
to secure upsets in suburban seats long
occupied by Liberal politicians.
A group of independent candidates,
many of whom were women, appear to
have capitalised on sexism and integrity
scandals that rocked the Australian
parliament to oust senior Liberals.
Senior Conservatives drew parallels
with blue wall seats in southern
England where Tory support collapsed
at the local elections. The Greens and
the Liberal Democrats were the main
beneficiaries when the Tories lost 485
council seats this month.
The Liberal Democrats are hoping to
continue their run of by-election upsets
next month and overturn a Tory major-
ity of 24,239 in Tiverton & Honiton in a
contest triggered by the resignation of
Neil Parish, the Conservative MP who
viewed pornography on his phone in
the Commons chamber. Sir Ed Davey,the party’s leader, said that traditional
Conservative voters were defecting to
his party in southern England. “The
Australian election will bring hope to
many people in this country who see
our own out-of-touch government
refusing to tackle the issues that really
matter to our communities,” he said.
“Lifelong Conservative voters across
the country are sick of being taken for
granted by Boris Johnson.”
Lord Barwell, the Conservative peer
and former chief of staff to Theresa
May, said the results should act as a
wake-up call for his party. “[The]
Australian election result is a warning
of what happens when a centre-right
party drifts too far from centre [for
example] on climate change,” he said.
“Loss of formerly safe suburban
seats to independents is particularly
noteworthy.”
Tory strategists have emphasised
that the Australian elections were
unique and dealt with different domes-
tic issues from those that face Johnson.
Senior members of the One Nation
caucus of Tory MPs, however, said the
results were a reminder to the prime
minister of the need to grow the
economy. In recent weeks No 10 has fo-
cused on identifying “wedge issues”,
such as sending migrants to Rwanda,
which help to put clear water between
the Conservatives and Labour.
Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative
MP for Sutton Coldfield, said: “We need
to focus on the self-evident truth that
there is no substitute for having proper
long-term plans to tackle the country’s
problems. Turning us away from a low-
growth, high-inflation economy to a
high-growth, low-inflation one is a very
high political priority indeed.”
New PM’s vow to end Australian
climate war, page 32Government departments are covering
up serious wrongdoing and “fobbing
off” people who complain about negli-
gence and mistakes by the state, the
head of the public services watchdog
has said.
In a scathing attack on Whitehall,
Rob Behrens accused officials of re-
garding people who complained about
their treatment as a nuisance.
He cited the case of a British holiday-
maker who was raped in Turkey and
told by Foreign Office officials to “carry
on” with her holiday “and enjoy it”.
The woman was allowed to sign a
document in Turkish saying she did not
want a police investigation to take place
and was advised to take a shower so she
would “feel better”. She was never told
that a forensic examination would be
necessary for a police investigation or
given accurate information on how to
report a crime. The Foreign Office ac-
cepted responsibility only after a for-
mal investigation by the watchdog.
In an interview with The Times
before a speech today Behrens, the par-
liamentary and health service ombuds-
man, said such incidents appeared to be
symptomatic of a wider attitude of
“shabby” behaviour.
The ombudsman examines
complaints against the NHS and
government departments that are
referred by MPs, and can re-
commend compensation payments
for serious failings.
Behrens has run the service
since 2017, having previously
worked as commissioner at
the Bar Standards Board
and as the independent
adjudicator for higher
education.
He called for ministers to
overhaul Whitehall’s com-
plaints system and to treat
citizens with the “respect
Officials accused of ‘fobbing off ’ public
Oliver Wright Policy Editor they deserved”. Behrens said: “I’ve no-
ticed in the last 18 months that we have
had an increasing number of cases
where the treatment of citizens by de-
partments has been shabby.
“They seem to regard those people
who complain as a nuisance. This is not
every department but there are lots of
examples of it. This culture of fobbing
off and refusing to accept mistakes is
damaging to public trust and faith in
government and public services.”
Behrens cited the case of 118,
people with disabilities and health
problems who had their benefits
wrongly cut by the Department for
Work and Pensions. One seriously ill
woman had her benefits cut by about
£80 a week, leaving her unable to heat
her home and buy food.
But despite the error, which the de-
partment now admits, it has refused a
recommendation by the ombudsman
to pay compensation to those affected.
Behrens said there were many more
individual cases of officials making
mistakes and then failing to take re-
sponsibility for them. He added that
even when the ombudsman got in-
volved there was a “kind of resent-
ment” by departments when presented
with an “evidence-based reasonable
and impartial decision”.
He added: “That’s not really
good enough. I’m an officer of
parliament. Our office — not
me — our office should be
treated with the respect that it
deserves.”
The commissioner
said that failure to
take complaints
seriously, which he
said had also
contributed to the
Windrush scandal,
had resulted in a serious crisis in the
form of erosion of trust in public bodies.
“The British people have a vision, and
rightly so, of a social contract whereby
they work hard and pay their taxes in
exchange for public institutions that
uphold values of integrity, quality and
transparency,” he said.
“What we are seeing repeatedly is a
failure from public bodies to live up to
these standards.”
Behrens said that at present he could
only investigate complaints passed to
him by an MP on behalf of one of their
constituents, with individuals unable to
complain directly.
The ombudsman is also not able to
launch wider investigations proactively,
even when it has independent evidence
of problems in a department. He called
on ministers to increase the powers of
the commission, arguing that if the
government was serious in its levelling-
up agenda it would make it easier
to give a voice to those least able to
complain.
He also said: “There should be one
national public service ombudsman,
bringing together local government,
health and parliamentary bodies so
that people know where to go.”
He added: “Most of my international
partners have what is called the power
of their own initiative, so when they see
that there’s an issue, which is serious,
which needs investigation that hasn’t
been complained about, then they can
undertake the investigation on the
basis that no one else is looking at it.
“And in a number of areas, mental
health scandals, the Windrush case, I
could have looked at these issues,
addressed them and put them to bed.
But I wasn’t able to because people
hadn’t complained about them.”
A government spokesman said: “All
departments have processes for
responding to members of the public
and a robust complaints procedure. We
keep these under constant review.”Rob Behrens said
public bodies
failed the public