Osborne's tax breaks for North Sea oil and a Thatcherism flashback

Osborne’s tax breaks for North Sea oil and a Thatcherism flashback

Back in the 70s, the UK and Norway took two very different approaches to the roughly equal share of North Sea oil and gas that they had within their territorial waters. With state-owned oil company Statoil at the helm, Norway cautiously put aside profits and levies from other oil companies operating within its fields into...
Arts cuts, oil sponsorship & Osborne's North Sea tax breaks

Arts cuts, oil sponsorship & Osborne’s North Sea tax breaks

This piece (originally titled “From oil to art, liberating culture”)  is reprinted from The New Home Front II: Policies for Ecological, Social and Economic Renewal that was launched by Caroline Lucas MP in September 2012, outlining a range of policy proposals designed to set the UK on a path to a clean, green future. Since...

Death knell or crying wolf?

In April the Chancellor, George Osborne, launched his ‘Fair Fuel Stabiliser’. This linked the rate of tax paid by oil companies to global oil prices. When the price of oil was above $75 a barrel, the rate of tax on North Sea oil profits would rise, with the additional revenue used to lower the price...