Sugar

Baroness Merron Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I always turn to the noble Lord for his experience and advice. It is well known that diabetics, for example, do not look at their sugar content but at their intake of carbohydrates when looking at their diet. I say this as someone whose family has both type 1 and type 2 diabetics, so I understand this issue. I would welcome more information from the noble Lord.

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

My Lords, since its introduction in 2018, the sugar tax on soft drinks has successfully reduced sugar intake and raised more than £880 million, which the Government had promised to spend on tackling childhood obesity. However, it is no longer directly linked to any specific programmes, nor to departmental spending. Can the Minister explain this turnaround to your Lordships’ House, and what assessment has been made of the effect on public confidence that similar taxes will be dedicated to expenditure on improving people’s health?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising the success so far of the programme in reducing sugar in drinks. Between 2015 and 2019, we saw a 44% reduction in sales-weighted average total sugar in retailer and manufacturer-branded drinks subject to the soft drinks industry levy. The money raised through the soft drinks industry levy was not linked to any specific programmes or departmental spending. As the noble Baroness will be aware, departmental spend is allocated through spending reviews by the Treasury, and there is quite often some scepticism over hypothec—sorry, probably too much sugar, or not enough sugar—or hypothecated taxes, but we are committed to tackling childhood obesity through a number of different programmes.