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Windfall tax of energy companies should fund energy efficiency

16 December 2008

Energy efficiency measures to help people struggling with fuel bills this winter should be funded by a tax on the "massive unearned windfall profits" of the big six energy companies, according to MPs.

A group of over 100 Labour MPs have criticised the energy firms for not passing on the wholesale drop in fuel prices to their customers.

In a letter to the Observer, the group, coordinated by Compass, called for money raised by the windfall tax to be used to improve the homes of the fuel poor to help cut their energy bills.

The letter supports a motion tabled by Leeds North East MP Fabian Hamilton, which says that government 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".

Earlier this month E.On announced that it was going to cut its single-fuel tariff by less than half what regulator Ofgem had suggested.

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Author: Administrator User