The bittersweet saga of the sugar tax

WE produce about one million tonnes of sugar in the UK every year. It’s a staple part of the income of many farmers in the East of England, as well as providing jobs in the food industry nationwide. That doesn’t mean, however, that we should ignore the fact that we’re eating too much in general and too much sugar in particular.

Nonetheless, sugar is and will remain a food ingredient and only the most determined of health fanatics want to ban it—they have an unhealthy obsession with sugar that undermines the more sensible aim of promoting a balanced diet in which it has a proper place.

That unhelpful attitude only encourages those on the opposite side of the argument to fulminate against any attempt to improve our eating habits as an invasion of personal liberty. Only this month, the Institute for Economic Affairs, a right-wing think tank, suggested that moves to curb obesity in children might mean the end of a beloved sweet, the sherbet lemon! Those at either end of the health debate really do deserve each other.

The more sober truth is that the Government, faced with an obesity epidemic, has taken some faltering steps to encourage healthy eating. We don’t yet know whether the sugar tax will be effective in the longer term in reducing consumption, but it’s been worth trying and, so far, appears to have had a real effect.

Even so, the debate has been distorted by immoderate views on both sides. Sugar has been singled out for special tax treatment, instead of the wider diet being considered. This has given populist politicians such as Boris Johnson the opportunity to pledge to rid us of ‘sin taxes’, which would be to ignore the fact that obesity has overtaken smoking as the biggest burden on the NHS.

Behind all this lurks a serious political scandal for which the Government is entirely

to blame. The sugar tax was introduced with very little opposition, not only because childhood obesity is so serious a threat, but also because it was promised that the takings from the tax would be put into a ‘healthy pupils capital fund’, which would pay for the refurbishment of sports fields and swimming pools, breakfast clubs and upgrading kitchens.

It seemed that, at long last, the sporting facilities in our State schools would get a muchneeded boost. It turned out to be hardly a boost, however, because most of the money was stolen and spent on things that ought to have come from the ordinary schools budget. Some 75% of the money—about £300 million—went on fire alarms, damp-proofing, new boilers, new roofs and lavatories, all essential remedial work that ought to have been paid for from normal budgets.

A health tax, much of it paid on British agricultural produce, was being filched to shore up the Government’s deficiencies in schools spending. Even worse is the announcement that, in future, the Treasury will take the whole lot and there’ll be no capital fund at all.

This is truly an outrage and strikes at the very heart of trust in Government. If people are to be sold tax increases for health or environmental reasons, then they must either get equivalent tax reductions elsewhere or the money must be earmarked for the promised purpose.

Congestion charging should go towards better public transport, climate-change levies towards fighting global warming, sugar taxes towards confronting obesity. That is what’s always promised, but hardly ever delivered. Politicians demean themselves and the causes they espouse if they break trust with the public.

This Government should be ashamed of itself and swiftly establish a proper capital fund for school sport.

A health tax was being filched to shore up deficiencies in schools spending