Sugar tax will raise £520m for primary school sports – Wired.co.uk

A sugar tax will be levied on makers of sugary soft drinks, chancellor George Osborne has announced.

The so-called sugar tax, announced in the chancellor’s latest budget, is expected to raise £520 million in its first year, but that number will fall over time as sugar levels are reduced by producers.

“Today, I can announce we will introduce a new sugar levy on the soft drinks industry,” 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 and we knew it caused disease but we dumped the difficult decisions and did nothing’.”

The money raised by the new tax will be used to improve sport in schools. The tax will apply to all producers and importers of soft drinks that contain added sugar.

The government explained the tax was designed to “encourage companies to reformulate by reducing the amount of added sugar in the drinks they sell”. If producers change their behaviour, they’ll pay less tax.

Shares in AG Barr, which makes Irn-Bru, fell 5.4 percent immediately after the announcement was made.

In England the money will be used to double the primary school and sport premium from £160m per year to £320m per year from September 2017.

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The government claimed this would enable primary schools to improve facilities and the “quality and breadth” of physical education. The money could also be used to establish or improve after school clubs focusing on sport.

Up to £285m a year will provide 25 percent of secondary schools “increased opportunity” to extend the school day. This extra time would let schools “offer a wider range of activities”, including sport. The criteria for how schools get access to this funding has not been announced.

A further £10m a year will be allocated to expand breakfast clubs in up to 1,600 schools from September 2017.