For the Many not the Few, Remember?

How very fitting for John Hutton, business minister and free-market disciple (left) to select the Daily Telegraph to announce a big 'No' to any thoughts of a windfall tax on gas and oil companies' huge profits. Very few Telegraph readers would be personally intimate with 'fuel poverty'. However most would still be aware of the inexorable rise in fuel and electricity costs. (Fuel poverty is defined as any family who spend in excess of 10% of their income on fuel and that's about 3m families at present.) Hutton was clear despite overwhelming evidence of hardship, families had "benefitted very considerably in the past from low prices." It is true we have had comparable prices to other European countries in recent years. But then again these countries have not had the massive resources of oil, gas and coal we have in Britain. There was barely any acknowledgement from the Labour Minister of the misery and want millions have in store this winter.

The profits enjoyed by firms such as BP (£13Bn last year and £4bn last quarter) are by any standard extra-ordinary and all of their increases have been derived from market conditions and not from harder work or shrewder investment. British Gas has a more modest enterprise than BP and only posted a £2bn profit at the same time as announcing an overnight increase in bills of 35%. If you didn't realise it, gas has doubled in price in the last two years.

Hutton argues it would be unreasonable to tax the utilities like 1997 when £4.5bn was raised because that was a manifesto committment. However the market economy grows in unpredictable ways and Government should not wait for an election before making any adjustment. Traditionally American Democrats have been well right of Labour in terms of being business friendly. But Obama is committed to impose a windfall tax on oil firms and give a tax break to middle and lower income families.

Hutton has unashamedly swallowed the CBI argument about disincentives to investment - the same arguments that have been made by Tories about minimum wage, equal pay and going back 100 years national insurance. Much of the Labour administration is just too cautious to make any bold policy gesture toward social justice. I suspect for Hutton re-distribution is not an embarrassing reminder of naive ideals, he really believes in the unrestrained business ethos. To Hutton, addressing these profits would be a 'tax and spend' socialist agenda. His constiutency is no longer the poor and elderly struggling to keep their houses warm -now he serves the profiteers.