New tax on sugary drinks could push prices up 20%

Monday 29 February 2016

Jersey’s Health department is recommending a new 20% tax on the price of all sugar-sweetened drinks.

The Island's Head of Health Improvement says that's the amount we need to tax drinks like Coke, Ribena and sports drinks to get us drinking less sugar and reduce obesity levels by 5%.

He said that the 20% rate was the right one to encourage people to change their behaviour - and that a paper was due to go to ministers in the coming weeks.

Martin Knight said: "Fiscal studies show that's the price it would need to be to push people away from buying them."

Health Minister Andrew Green says he's in favour of a sugar tax but it needs to be simple and a levy on fizzy drinks should help us cut down on sugary drinks and provide more funding to deal with obesity and to give children more access to dental care.

Speaking at last week's Health & Social Security Scrutiny Hearing he said he'd be putting the idea to the Treasury Minister.

Mr Knight said Health are now putting together a paper over the next month for the Health and Treasury Minister to consider that covers what the benefits would be, the cost benefits and how much money it would generate. And with 20% of our children leaving primary school obese or overweight, he wants to see the money invested in programmes to improve their health and well-being.

The sugar tax is already proving to be effective in Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland and 38 states in America where they have more public support for it.

Mr Knight said: "What we can see internationally is that those jurisdictions get much more public support when it’s not just put into the government pot, if it’s ring-fenced for improving children’s health generally."

Obesity is to blame for a number of non-communicable chronic diseases - causing type 2 diabetes and with it kidney disease, heart disease, eye disease as well as a wide range of cancers including breast cancer, cancer of the uterus, oesophagus, stomach and bowel. 

Mr Knight said: “We don’t want an older population with more disease, most of these are preventable diseases. The majority are generated by the behaviours we engage in.

"The strength of evidence suggests that behaviours learnt through our formative years is what we take into adulthood.

"We need to be very watertight about what works to change behavior, because these things impact us on a daily basis.

"It’s one piece of work that can help us to make a difference. It’s a tax on something with no nutritional benefit at all. You need to hydrate yourself but you are better off doing it with something else."