Inside Politics: Windfall tax calls grow as BP pays no UK tax for five years despite £13bn profits

Labour repeats call for levy of 10 per cent after it emerges BP pays no UK tax while getting subsidies to wind down North Sea operations, writes Matt Mathers

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has previously rejected a windfall tax, arguing it would deter investment (PA)

Everything is going up – including the profits of oil and gas giants like BP. Last night it emerged that the company has paid £0 tax in the UK in the past five years, despite just posting profits of £13bn. The disclosure heaps further pressure on Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, to do more to help the poorest families with sky-rocketing energy bills and the cost of living, as Labour calls for a one-off, pandemic crisis windfall tax to ease the burden on Britons facing staggering costs. Elsewhere, the government is being urged to do more to reduce NHS waiting lists and Boris Johnson has made further changes to his top team? Will they be enough to save his skin? Some backbench Tory MPs are not convinced and a billionaire Tory donor has withdrawn his funding from the party, saying the prime minister has gone past the point of no return.

Inside the bubble

Politics commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for:

Boris Johnson’s revamped Downing Street operation will get its first test at prime minister’s questions, when the PM’s Tory critics will watch him closely for any sign of a change of approach. (Don’t hold your breath). Keir Starmer will have to decide whether to leave it to others to raise Johnson’s “Savile smear” about him.

On the select committee corridor, Therese Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, will be questioned about the cost-of-living crisis, while Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, will be quizzed about the national space strategy. Kwarteng will also make an announcement on low carbon energy projects.

Coming up:

– Health minister Ed Argar on LBC Radio at 7.50am

– London mayor Sadiq Khan on BBC Radio 4 Today at 8.10am

Daily Briefing

FINAL STRAW?: Pressure is growing on Rishi Sunak to impose a one-off, pandemic crisis windfall tax on energy companies after it emerged that BP posted gargantuan profits of £13bn last year – but has paid £0 (zero, nil, nada ) tax in the UK for the past five, according to research by Uplift and first reported by Channel 4 News. BP, whose chief executive previously described the pandemic as a “cash machine” for the company, is also extracting billions of pounds from the UK taxpayer to help decommission its operations in the North Sea. BP did not deny it had paid zero tax but stressed that the money it has invested in the UK is vital for jobs.

‘ALMOST UNANSWERABLE CASE’: Ed Miliband, shadow secretary of state for climate and net zero, said the case for a windfall tax is now “almost unanswerable” as he called for a 10 per cent levy on energy firms in the next budget to help the poorest families struggling with huge rises in their energy bills. “In these circumstances, it is only fair and right for oil and gas producers to make an additional contribution to helping the millions of families facing a true financial crisis,” Miliband said. The chancellor has so far rejected calls for a windfall tax and instead introduced measures which the opposition says do not go far enough. Elsewhere, the chief executive of Ofgem has admitted the energy regulator should have acted sooner to prevent firms from collapsing amid soaring prices.

WAITING GAME: The health secretary has pledged to recruit 15,000 new health workers by the end of March as after the government was criticised for admitting that NHS waiting lists may not fall for another two years and could even double by then. Sajid Javid, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said the NHS aimed “to recruit 10,000 more nurses from overseas and 5,000 more healthcare support workers by the end of March” to increase capacity.Javid earlier set out in the Commons how the NHS would tackle the backlog built up during the Covid-19 pandemic, including new targets for reducing long waits and getting people checked for illnesses more quickly.

PACK SHUFFLED: After days of speculation about who might go where, Boris Johnson yesterday made more changes to his top team as he continues trying to convince MPs that a leopard can in fact change its spots and that he can make it through the partygate scandal and into the next general election. With his power badly depleted as he desperately attempts to cling on in No 10 – and a less than ideal start to life in Downing Street for his new spinner Guto Harri, who continues to face questions about his lobbying activities for the controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei – Johnson carried out a mini reshuffle which saw a handful of ministers moved between departments but none sacked, in a series of moves there were kind to hardball loyalists who have been out on the airwaves batting for Big Dog over the past few two months.

WHO’S IN, WHO’S OUT?: Chris Heaton-Harris replaces Mark Spencer as chief whip, with Christopher Pincher acting as his deputy; Jacob Rees-Mogg takes up a new brief named ‘minister for Brexit opportunities’ (Spencer takes his old job as leader of the Commons); Michael Ellis, paymaster general and minister for the urgent question, has been rewarded for his efforts at the dispatch box during the partygate scandal and gets Steve Barclay’s old job as minister of state for the Cabinet Office. Henry Newman, a good friend of Carrie Johnson and a special adviser, was also moved out of No 10 to the levelling up department as Johnson put the finishing touches to Operation Save Big Dog. Heaton-Harris is expected to join the PM on the front bench for another unmissable PMQs. You can catch all the action from today’s session on our liveblog.

REACTION: Will the changes be enough to prevent the Big Dog from a trip to the vet to be put down? Johnson was accused of having “complete disregard for standards in politics” after using the reshuffle to promote Spencer, who has been accused of “blackmail” against MPs and is currently under investigation for alleged Islamophobia. Senior backbencher Sir Bernard Jenkin said the PM “has got to sort this out”. “We’re interested not in the optics, in some impression of a reset,” said the Commons Liaison Committee chair. “We’re looking for a change in the capability and the character of the government, so that nothing as clumsy and mortifying as this partygate episode could ever happen again.” And what about the money men? Billionaire Tory donor John Armitage, who has withdrawn his funding from the party, told the BBC he thought Mr Johnson had “passed the point of no return”. “Politicians should go into politics to do good for their country. That is the overwhelming reason to be in politics. I don’t think it’s about your own personal sense of getting to the top of a snakes-and-ladders game,” Mr Armitage said. Elsewhere inside No 10, the PM spent hours in a state of flurry after claims about his wife were published in the serialisation of an unauthorised biography by a Tory peer – even threatening to take legal action, according to Downing Street insiders. No 10 denied he threatened legal action.

On the record

“I made it clear last week that while the prime minister’s words were not disorderly they were inappropriate. As I said then these sorts of comments only inflame opinions and generate disregard for the House and it is not acceptable. Our words have consequences and we should always be mindful of the fact.”

Speaker Lindsey Hoyle rebukes PM over Savile jibe.

From the Twitterati

“Haters gonna hate, but remember that, if we were still in the EU, we wouldn’t be able to appoint a Brexit opportunities minister.”

FT chief features writer Henry Mance pokes fun at Rees-Mogg’s new job.

Essential reading

• Rosena Allin-Khan, The Independent: The crisis in child mental health is the Tory government’s badge of shame
• Marie Le Conte, The Independent: Tories are hoping voters will forget Partygate – they won’t
• Daniel Finkelstein, The Times: If Boris Johnson’s magic has gone, it won’t come back
• Linda Hirshman, The Atlantic: The fight for democracy will be a long haul

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