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It’s taken six years, but the government has finally committed to uprating the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, as is the norm for tobacco and alcohol excise duties. A review of the thresholds and exemptions on milk-based drinks has also been launched.

Widely seen as the flagship effective measure in sugar reduction, the SDIL needs to be as good as it can be. However, the government is merely making minor tweaks to an already successful model for incentivising healthy reformulation.

Soft drinks companies, as well as health bodies, can rightly ask what the government is doing to hold the rest of the food industry to account. That is why we and over 30 other health and food leaders have written to the Chancellor and the secretary of state this week.

There is a clear public mandate to go further, and faster. Far from being worried about nanny statism, there is clear evidence from the work done by the National Food Strategy, the recent Lords’ report or the Food Conversations convened by the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission, to show citizens believe the government should intervene to make healthy food the most accessible and affordable choice. Only 13% of almost 5,000 people polled by YouGov think companies will act to make products healthier without government intervention.

There is a clear health mandate to go further and faster. The latest worrying data from the National Child Measurement Programme shows further increase in obesity rates for four and five-year-olds entering primary schools, and levels for 11-year-olds remain higher than pre-pandemic levels. Risks for children from the most disadvantaged or low-income backgrounds are twice as high, something that should give the government Child Poverty Taskforce serious food for thought.

Nutritional safety nets – whether breakfast clubs, school meals, Healthy Start payments, fruit & vegetable vouchers or holiday activity programmes – can play a vital role in tackling health inequalities, also boosting educational achievement, future productivity and economic growth. The government badly needs to identify new sources of revenue to bolster these hugely valued programmes.

 

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The soft drinks levy currently raises over £330m per year on average, and the uprating alone is forecast to result in an increase of £95m by 2030. Adjustments to thresholds and scope have the potential to trigger further reformulation or increase this income further. But all this is dwarfed by the potential that applying a levy model to other high salt and sugar food categories might achieve in terms of changing recipes or raising revenues counted in billions, not millions.

What about the industry mandate to go further and faster? A growing number of manufacturers and retailers, most recently the CEO of Nomad Foods, are throwing their weight behind mandatory targets for reporting on health of their products, and reorienting product portfolios to pass the nutrient profiling model. Voluntary reformulation programmes end in December 2025, and the food industry will certainly need a clear signal of the government’s intention well ahead of this deadline. The government has an enormous opportunity to heed these progressive food sector voices that are calling for a level playing field on health.

The growing dietary health emergency – repeatedly described as “shocking” by the Lords’ report – demands we go beyond the SDIL. We now look to the combined efforts of the 2025 comprehensive spending review and budget, the Child Health Action Plan, Child Poverty Strategy and the cross-government Health Mission to deliver the ambitious, comprehensive Recipe for Change, and orient our food industry in support of building the healthiest generation of children.

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