What next for food & drink now Jeremy Hunt is in charge of the economy?

Jeremy Hunt is a class act. He has been quite outstanding in his three or four public outings as chancellor. On TV on Sunday and in the House on Monday, he has oozed reassurance. If he’d worn a t-shirt with the words ‘I’m the grown-up’ he could not have done his work better. Aided, of course, by the sotto voce endorsement from the governor of the Bank of England telling the world “we had a meeting of minds”.

But over the next fortnight, we will have the reckoning. After the PM’s no-show, Suella Braverman’s excoriating resignation letter (by the end of which it was difficult to remember she had actually made quite a serious error of judgement) and the chaos of the fracking vote on Wednesday night, Liz Truss has resigned in less than two months.

The replacement will be tricky. No sensible candidate – right, left or centre – wants to preside over the Halloween financial statement. It is this statement from Jeremy Hunt that will deliver the financial last will and testament of the Truss government. It will be a package of cuts in public spending and tax rises to set the blueprint for the final two years of this government. For the next PM – whoever it is – it would have been better to be able to shrug and say: ‘I inherited this mess, I just have to make it work’, than to be in charge when the cuts are made.

Which is why the food and drink industry must watch Jeremy Hunt very carefully indeed over the weeks and months to come. Hunt is now in complete charge of the economy. In essence he can do whatever he wants, though of course, his fiscal options are strictly limited. Gone is the remotest chance of the abolition of the soft drinks levy. I think Kwasi Kwarteng genuinely intended to remove it, had he made it to Halloween. Now, if Hunt needs extra funds, he might even toy with extending it.

More importantly, this chancellor and the government have the perfect financial and political backdrop to go back to intervention on obesity, alcohol duty and other parts of the industry. What seemed like a brief prospect of liberation from further regulation is gone. For good.

Whether it is Jeremy Hunt – who as health secretary was in the vanguard of those supporting using taxes as a means to nudge consumers into healthier choices – or any Labour/opposition administration after the next election, the direction of travel is clear. The government needs the money and it needs to cut the costs of the NHS. Obesity – a huge driver of NHS and social care spending – is an obvious target. The industry needs to put its ducks in a row. Foot dragging and delaying won’t work. A constructive and comprehensive plan is needed, and fast.

You have been warned.