For a level-headed news story on Gordon Brown’s position on windfall taxes see this morning’s FT.

The government is considering upping the proportion of carbon permits which energy companies will have to buy in the latest phase of the EU’s emissions trading scheme.  (Until now they have been given the permits for free).

Instead of the proposed 7 per cent a year the figure could be raised to 10 per cent.

By my maths, this is 3 per cent of the estimated £1.5bn annual value of the permits (of which 90 per cent would still be given for free until 2012, when all will have to be bought).

In other words, £50m a year; contrary to most reports.  Even if this is frontloaded it still comes to just £200m over the four years to 2012.

It’s rather a far cry from the “billions” being demanded by the unions and the Labour left.

Sure, there may be other measures: eg making energy companies pay more to help low-income families insulate their homes.   

And there’s an interesting line in this morning’s Guardian suggesting that the government could weight the winter fuel allowance further towards the poor; and not just pensioners of all backgrounds. At the moment this is still at the “option” stage, however.

Chutzpah today from the Tories after the breakdown of talks between EDF and British Energy.

Charles Hendry, shadow energy minister, has put out a statement declaring that: “Time is not on our side, as the government has left it very late to give a firm direction for nuclear.”

This seems a bit rich when - until the back end of last year - the Tory policy was nuclear as a last resort.

It wasn’t until early January that the party made its more positive position clear via Alan Duncan.

Treasury officials are NOT working on potential plans for a windfall tax. That’s what I’m being briefed.

Of course that doesn’t mean that Gordon Brown may not bow to pressure in the autumn and put it in the pre-budget report. It could be a vote-winner. Plenty of siren voices are urging such a move (unions, backbenchers, junior ministers, maybe even some cabinet ministers).

But the prime minister is sophisticated enough to know about the downsides. Energy companies can simply put up their prices to compensate for the charge - which would cause even more public anger.

Plus there is the investment issue. Peter Luff, chair of the business select committee, published a report last week which included a call for a (small) tax on profits made through the European emissions trading scheme.

Yesterday he warned that a bigger tax on “excessive profits” would be a disaster, preventing energy companies from putting in new infrastructure investment and storing up a much, much bigger problem 10 years down the line.

Here’s a typical response from business today to newspaper reports that the prime minister is (still) considering a levy:

“Imposing a windfall tax on energy company profits won’t bring down the price of energy bills, so consumers and business will lose out. The tax would be a knee-jerk reaction that risks the UK’s ability to attract essential investment needed to secure and upgrade our future power supplies. Failure to gain this investment will mean consumers are even less likely to see any reduction in their bills as the country would remain in a precarious position over supply.” (Chris Hannant, head of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce)

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Oil companies already pay high taxes. Maurice Fitzpatrick, head of tax at Grant Thornton, says the North Sea oil tax works out at about 50-70 per cent (it’s paid as petroleum revenue tax AND corporation tax).

The estimated £15bn of tax from North Sea oil this year is about a quarter of the entire UK corporation tax-take - despite energy accounting for only about 3 per cent of GDP.