Windfall Needed Now

by Iago ap Steffan

This is definitely not a new topic of discussion, but one that does need to be talked about time and time again until it has been addressed. I'm talking about a windfall tax. This time I want to bring both the energy companies and banks to the forefront.
The other day I received a British Gas bill for my gas of £45.02! Doesn't sound that bad does it until I mention that it was for just over one month, that I was the only one living there at the time and that I had no gas cooker. Now I'm a student and money is a bit tight at the moment and every penny counts. How can an energy supplier honestly believe that a student could afford potentially a bill for £360 a year? God knows how older people, relying only on state pensions, can afford it and they probably use more energy than myself, especially in the winter months.
The other money making industry are the banks. Not only did they help bring in the recession by their attitudes towards lending, but were also raking it in with the overdraft and late payment fees; especially from those most vulnerable in society that can't keep up with repayments; again like students.
Today we hear that Lloyds Banking Group have made a profit of £1.6billion. This is a bank 73% owned by us, the people. Will this money be repaid back to the government who had to bail them out or to the people who have paid these unnecessary fees? Probably neither. Even though we paid out billions of pounds to save the banks they are still making profits and giving out big bonuses. This is why I support calls for a windfall tax on the banks and energy providers who make stupid amounts of profits to feed the fat cats and The City workers. This is something that I'm pretty sure the vast amount of the population would support and this must be implemented NOW!