Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 1:49 pm on 18 April 2018.

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Photo of Mr Neil Hamilton Mr Neil Hamilton UKIP 1:49, 18 April 2018

I'd like to turn to another tax now to explore the impact on behaviour. It seems, in the case of the sugar tax, imposed now by the Westminster Government, that the Welsh Government is due to get £47 million in extra funding over two years because of spending in England linked to that. Forecasts of what the levy would raise have fallen from £520 million to £240 million. The behavioural changes that the sugar tax has brought about already are that Coca-Cola, for example, have reduced the size of their standard regular Coke cans from 330 ml to 250 ml, although that hasn't led to a similar reduction in price in many cases. So, now we could find ourselves in a situation where, instead of buying a third of a litre in a can, people are buying two cans of quarter of a litre. So, they're buying actually more sugary drink than before, at a higher price. So, this would be a perverse outcome for such a tax to bring about. But Wales has a significant problem with obesity—worse than any other part of the UK—with 59 per cent of adults, apparently, overweight—I'm probably one of them—and 23 per cent classed as obese. As to the allocation of the money that is raised, can the Cabinet Secretary confirm whether the Welsh Government is going to allocate this money to solve the problem of obesity predominantly, whilst not regarding it as a wholly hypothecated tax? If it is raised for the purpose of changing behaviour, then the money that is going to be spent from that revenue should be directed towards the problem that it is intended to solve.