history. by my estimations it is the biggest profit ever recorded by a uk based company. $40 billion, £32 billion and as you say, we have had rocketing oil and gas prices. they have started to come down a bit here but this is 2022 s numbers. we already had higher oil and gas prices as the world emerged from a covid induced coma and demand came back. and there than they were rocketing when you had russia invaded ukraine and had things like russian oil gas and supplies shut off or shunned by international buyers. making the market, there was a lot of demand for what was left. so that is the context for this. i doubt they will be that next year because of the profits are coming down but we have inflation at a 40 year high, people s energy bills have doubled in some case tripled in some instances and so there is in understandable outreach in some quarters that they think shell should be paying much more tax. as simonjack mentioned there these record profits have renewed
walking a tightrope between not wanting to cause a huge recession, and at the same time not wanting to let inflation get out of control. but what about this 4%? because we heard there the recession will go to a recession, the perhaps shallower than expected. how would you consider it and what are you expecting? my guess is they are probably done. if you look at the way the forecast is at the moment, if they were to increase rates any more, inflation, although it is very high at the moment, is going to fall very past, falls in any other target, so i am not going to expect any more rises in the uk. fall very fast. fall very fast. we talked about savinis fall very fast. we talked about savings for fall very fast. we talked about savings for a fall very fast. we talked about savings for a mortgage. - for the average person, they usually have a mixture of things. they probably have a mortgage and a credit card, maybe some savings if they are lucky. will they feel any relief i
all the while. and this big, strong area of high pressure is going to build its way in across the uk for sunday. so, yes, we will be left in some colder air, but we will also have bright skies overhead, largely clear skies and lots of sunshine. bit of cloud lurking across the far southwest, a bit of cloud in the north of scotland as well. temperatures down a little bit, 8 or 9 degrees. and then into next week, broadly speaking, quite a chilly feel to the weather. dry in many places, some rain at times in the north and west.
and this big, strong area of high pressure is going to build its way in across the uk for sunday. so, yes, we will be left in some colder air, but we will also have bright skies overhead, largely clear skies and lots of sunshine. bit of cloud lurking across the far southwest, a bit of cloud in the north of scotland as well. temperatures down a little bit, 8 or 9 degrees. and then into next week, broadly speaking, quite a chilly feel to the weather. dry in many places, some rain at times in the north and west.
bring prices down. as you pointed out earlier in your segment, it is forcing people to rein in spending, which is really unfortunate. that is a fact of life. average people will feel, some people will benefit and most people will not. how do you see it, we saw the imf saying the uk was one of the only advanced countries expected to have this low rate of growth? it makes a very grim reading. if you stand back a little bit, we are in the middle of a catastrophic and unprecedented stagnation and output per head, prosperity essentially, since the beginning of the financial crisis of and that is really the main challenge for policymakers. what the bank of england does here or there, a half percent increase or decrease in rate, it is small compared to the enormous policy challenge. what did they need to do?