Soft drink tax ‘could boost fruit consumption’

Leading medical bodies are calling for a sugary soft- drink tax to be included in this year’s Budget that will be announced by Chancellor George Osborne on 20 March.

The recommendation by food and farming charity Sustain has already been backed by more than 60 organisations including the likes of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the Royal Society for Public Health.

Sustain believes a tax would raise around £1bn a year in duty to fund free fruit and vegetable-based meals in schools to improve children’s health. Diet-related illness currently costs the NHS £6bn every year.

'Sugar-laden drinks are mini health timebombs, contributing to dental diseases, obesity and a host of life-threatening illnesses which cost the NHS billions each year,' said Charlie Powell, Sustain's campaigns manager.

He added: 'We are delighted that so many organisations want to challenge the government to show it has a public health backbone by including a sugary drinks duty in budget 2013.

However, Nigel Jenney, CEO of the Fresh Produce Consortium, has called for the government to instead focus more on current school food schemes.

He said: 'We want the UK Government to expand tried and tested initiatives such as the Schools Fruit and Vegetable Scheme and take advantage of funding available from the European Commission for such schemes.

'This would lead to a definite increase in consumption of fresh fruit and vegetable amongst young children, rather than introducing a raft of new unproven schemes overseen by another expensive quango.”

Meanwhile, health secretary Jeremy Hunt called the tax a 'possibility' during an interview on ITV's This Morning programme.

When asked about the chances of legislation, Hunt responded: 'It's a possibility. I just think that it's a very blunt tool because in the end you can say we want to have certain children's cereal have less sugar content and people will find another something that calls itself a cereal that has more sugar content in it.'

Hunt believes there is still a lot more work the Department of Health can do to ensure retailers offer consistent offers and present fresh produce in a clear way to consumers.

'Much more important is things like the way that supermarkets present fresh fruit, and do they have offers on fresh fruit and fresh produce as they do on sugary products.'

But the idea of a soft drinks tax has not gone down well with the British Soft Drinks Association who believes the industry is being unfairly targeted.

'Obesity is a serious and complex problem, but a tax on soft drinks, which contribute just 2 per cent of the total calories in the average diet, will not help address it,' said Gavin Partington, the director general of the British Soft Drinks Association.

He concluded: 'Over the last 10 years, the consumption of soft drinks containing added sugar has fallen by 9 per cent while the incidence of obesity has increased by 15 per cent.'