BORIS Johnson today refused to rule out a tax grab on oil giants’ eye-watering profits to bring down bills for ordinary families.
The PM vowed to do more to ease the burden on Brits in cost of living hell as he summoned his Cabinet to discuss solutions.
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Increasing Tory MPs are demanding he pays for more support with a windfall tax on the billions being raked in by energy fat cats.
He is facing pressure to act after Shell and BP revealed respectively that they made £7billion and £5billion in the first three months of this year.
Mr Johnson has been squeamish about raiding their profits – claiming it deters investment – but is not taking it off the table.
He told LBC: “I don’t like them. I didn’t think they’re the right thing. I don’t think they’re the right way forward.
“I want those companies to make big, big investments.”
Top Conservatives are urging him to rethink – saying it is a terrible look for oil titans to be swimming in money while hard-pressed Brits struggle to heat their homes.
Senior backbencher Robert Halfon said: “I do think that the Government should consider properly a windfall tax.
“Oil companies or oil bosses are the new oligarchs – one of them earning a salary over £76 million, getting a £4.5 million bonus.”
Earlier this week it was revealed that one in three voters back the tax.
32 per cent of voters think the best way to help Brits is to slap a windfall tax on energy companies’ profits.
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After a Cabinet away day in Stoke today, Mr Johnson promised more support for families was coming down the tracks.
He said: “You’ve already seen the cuts in council tax. We will do things to help people in the short term, of course.
“And I’m not going to anticipate anything more that we may do.”
He told Cabinet Ministers they need to use “all our ingenuity, all our compassion, everything that we need to do to help people”.
And he said that he “wakes up every day thinking about what we can do to help people”.
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