Sugar

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect of sugar on health in England; and what steps they will take to reduce its consumption.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

My Lords, consuming too much sugar can lead to weight gain, which in turn increases the risk of serious diseases such as cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and Covid-19. It also increases the risk of tooth decay. Through the healthy weight strategy, we are delivering a sugar reduction and reformulation programme, including the soft drinks industry levy, and legislating to restrict the promotion and advertising of products high in fat, salt, and sugar.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. He would agree that we need a suite of different approaches—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

—to try to make some headway. One of the great successes has been the sugar tax, yet the Government, for reasons which he previously explained, have decided not to extend it over a wider front because of unforeseen contingencies which created problems. Would he examine the prospect of taxing those unforeseen consequences so that the major driver for changing behaviour—pricing—will start to deliver the real results for us?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for what I am sure was his unintended pun. I will try not to sugar-coat my response too much. We will see who can descend to the worst pun by the end.

We take seriously the issue of unintended consequences. As the noble Lord has rightly said, there has been evidence of people deciding to go to a different brand. In the case of Irn-Bru, it introduced a newer version, which I think it called “Irn-Bru 1901”, which has in fact a higher sugar content. We are very aware of that, which is why all the measures that we take must be evidence based.