welcome to the programme. there are tentative signs that inflation is coming under control, and the recession forecast last year will be shallower and shorter than expected. butjust to make sure, the central banks are raising the interest rates again. yesterday it was the fed, today the bank of england increased the base rate, half a point, to 4% the highest it has been in m years. we think inflation will come down rapidly, and a lot of that is down to energy prices, which have fallen rapidly. but i m afraid there are big risks out there which mean that it may not happen in that way. yet we re still seeing stronger pressure from price and wage setting in the economy in the question is, will that start to ease off? coinciding with the bank s decision came a profit announcement from shell and a rather blunt illustration of why we re all getting poorer. the oil and gas giant has reaped profits of £40 billion last year. the taxman has reaped far less. shell said it paid $1
all that extra money back to their shareholders, which include pension funds, but i think they will come under pressure to say, why is it that you re not, you know, old moneybags here, why aren t you using some of this cash to wean us off fossil fuels and become a big player in renewables? but shell has been accused of misleading its investors over the money it says it is putting into renewable energy. a complaint has been filed with the us securities regulator by the activist group global witness. the group says said it is concerned that shell has materially misstated its financial commitment to renewable sources of energy by inflating its spending. in visual terms, think of it this way the company s total capital expendure is the big red box. 12% of that capital expenditure is funnelled into a division called renewables and energy solutions 2021, the orange box. but global witness says by its calculations shell has only spent $288 million on renewable, represented by the yel