The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and, of course, that would make sense if the evidence suggested that a soft drink tax implemented anywhere else in the world had actually worked and had the effect that he suggests. He is right to suggest that there are a lot of other measures that we as a Government and that businesses and organisations can take to address this issue; I do not believe that the sugar tax is the right one.
Sugar tax advocates have pointed out the introduction of a sugar tax in Mexico and the corresponding 6% decline in soft drink sales since the tax was introduced. However, research in The BMJ does not show evidence of a link between the introduction of the tax and the small decline in soft drinks consumption. Further taxes on non-essential energy dense foods were also introduced at the same time as the sugar tax, and they accounted for a higher proportion of Mexicans’ daily calorific intake. As the authors of the research admitted,
“we cannot determine the independent role of each”
of the taxes. The research even acknowledges that there is a lack of information on nutritional data for packaged drinks in Mexico, which means that researchers cannot see what the fall in soft drink consumption meant for a decline in sugar intake.
As many Members may know, Mexico does not have safe drinking water. As a high-profile advocate of the sugar tax in Mexico, Alejandro Calvillo, stated:
“We know that there are people who drink a lot of sodas and they don’t have access to drinking water.”
How can we possibly compare the results in a developing country that has unclean, unsafe drinking water with how a tax might operate here in the United Kingdom? Instead, let us compare like with like. When sugar taxes have been tried in developed nations such as France, they have had a negligible effect on reducing consumption. Denmark scrapped its sugar tax on soft drinks in 2014 and labelled it an expensive failure. The Danish Ministry of Taxation labelled food and drink taxes as
“misguided at best and may be counter-productive at worst”.
They even described it as an expensive liability for business, and, as we all know, a sugar tax would be a very bitter pill for British businesses to swallow.
Study after study on soft drinks taxes in the USA also shows that they have a negligible impact on sugary drink intake and calorie consumption. What is more, the small decline in sugary drinks is almost entirely offset by consumption of other sugary products.