Head of Research at the Adam Smith Institute, Ben Southwood, had his comments on a 20% tax on sugar featured in City AM:
However, the tax has come under fierce criticism. Ben Southwood, of the Adam Smith Institute, said:"GPs, who are excellent doctors but not necessarily fully up-to-date with the empirical nutrition literature, may tell us that sugar is poison now. But the evidence base for this claim is relatively weak. In 30 years, with higher quality, higher powered studies, we could just as easily find no relationship here."
"In general, nutrition is a hard subject, and we should be much more careful before making strong claims. Grand social engineering schemes tend not to work too well, and the government should be careful before giving into the demands of the baying public health lobby on the sugar tax."