Taxes on gas and oil companies are likely to be needed to help the poorest, Ben van Beurden says.
Taxes on firms within the oil and gas industry are "inevitable" to help the poorest people, the outgoing boss of Shell has said.
Ben van Beurden said that energy markets cannot behave in a way that "damage a significant part of society".The UK government under Liz Truss has pushed back against extending a windfall tax on oil and gas firms.Energy prices jumped when Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year, although prices had already been rising as economies began to recover after Covid lockdowns were lifted.
He said that "one way or another" there would be government intervention that "results in protecting the poorest". "That probably means governments need to tax people in this room to pay for it - I think we just have to accept [that] as a societal reality," he said."There is a discussion to be had about it but I think it's inevitable," he said.The UK brought in a windfall tax on bumper oil and gas profits in May, but Prime Minister Liz Truss has ruled out extending it.
The tax - called the Energy Profit Levy - applies to profits made by companies from extracting UK oil and gas, and the Treasury expects it to raise about £5bn in its first year.
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