Childhood Obesity Strategy

Debate between Geraint Davies and Will Quince

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I will come on to that in a bit more detail. The important element is that any approach we take must be evidence-based. I absolutely agree with her that we need to look at all the evidence.

I stated that the proportion of those aged two to 10 who were obese had gone from 17% in 2005 to 13% in 2013. The evidence suggests that childhood obesity rose quickly in the mid-2000s and has slightly fallen ever since. That is an important fact for two reasons. First, it suggests that our education programmes in our schools and the Government-backed campaigns on obesity within the last decade have had a positive impact in halting the increase in childhood obesity. Secondly, it undermines the scaremongering that suggests that childhood obesity is rocketing year on year. It simply is not; the reality is much more complex.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes has already mentioned, there is a growing clamour for a sugar tax on soft drinks to combat childhood obesity. She has called in a recent article for a 20% tax on sugary drinks as part of that overall solution. Her calls have been echoed by the British Medical Association and other public health campaigners. I have huge respect for my hon. Friend, but I think that a sugar tax is completely the wrong answer. A sugar tax is illiberal and patronising —in my view, nanny statism at its worst.

Given how sugar tax campaigners argue, one might think that consumption of sugar in the UK is at a record high. It is not. Consumption of sugar per head in the UK is falling, from a high of more than 50 kg a year in the 1980s to less than 40 kg a year now. What is more, soft drink consumption in the UK is falling. The latest household food survey from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shows that household soft drink consumption purchases have fallen by 5.2% since 2011 and by 19% for high-calorie soft drinks in the same period. Regular soft drink purchases are now at their lowest level since 1992.

[Geraint Davies]

Does not the hon. Gentleman agree, though, that a sugar tax would be eminently fiscally responsible? It would gather revenue, increase life chances, increase health and reduce health costs. From the point of view of the Exchequer, it would be very sensible. Can he not come up with other sensible ideas like that?

[Will Quince]

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.