Sitting down with Good Morning Britain, Chancellor George Osborne defended the sugary drink tax announced in yesterday’s budget as a ‘landmark public health decision’.
Speaking to the programme from a school in West Yorkshire about the sugar tax he said: “Look it’s controversial in the sense there’s always going to be people who oppose these kinds of things.
“But I think this is going to be one of the landmark public health decisions that we take as a generation and it’s all about the long term and the next generation.
“It shows we’re a government and a country that cares about doing the right thing for our children.”
Speaking about the decision to go ahead with the sugar tax, he added: “There's been a debate in our country about what we do about childhood obesity and it’s become clearer and clearer that the biggest source of sugar intake has been sugary drinks.
“There are some sugary drink manufacturers who have deliberately reduced sugar in their drinks which is great news and now we’re saying, ‘look in two years time we’re going to introduce a tax’, so companies have time to change the sugar content in those drinks.
“It means our kids will be taking in less sugar and we’re going to use the money to double the amount we spend on sport in schools, so kids are getting that physical activity as well.”
There will be two bands of sugar tax.
One will be for total sugar content above 5 grams per 100 millilitres, while the second, higher band, will be aimed at the most sugary drinks with more than 8 grams per 100 millilitres.
The higher band would affect such drinks as full-strength Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Lucozade Energy and Irn-Bru, while the lower band will catch drinks such as Dr Pepper, Fanta, Sprite, Schweppes Indian tonic water and alcohol-free shandy.
Announcing the move, Mr Osborne said: "I am not prepared to look back at my time here in this Parliament, doing this job and say to my children's generation: 'I'm sorry - we knew there was a problem with sugary drinks. We knew it caused disease. But we ducked the difficult decisions and we did nothing'."
TV chef Jamie Oliver has praised the decision, taking to Instagram to describe the tax as “bold, brave and logical”.
He wrote: “We did it guys, we did it! A sugar levy on sugary sweetened drinks… a profound move that will ripple around the world… business cannot come between our kids’ health!
“Our kids’ health comes first.”
He added: “Bold, brave , logical and supported by all the right people; now bring on the whole strategy soon to come.”
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Good Morning Britain is on ITV on weekdays between 6am - 8.30am
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