Dear Chancellor,

I hear you’re pulling out the Treasury’s knives for another round of “sin taxes”. Gambling, junk food, milkshakes and yet another extension of the sugar levy. It sounds sweet on paper: shred waistlines, bulk up coffers, saucy headlines. But in the real world, it looks far from health policy and is yet again twisting the knife into the sides of low-mid income families.

We’ve lived with the sugar tax for seven years now (we've done a deeper dig here). Has it solved obesity? No. Childhood obesity rates are still stubbornly high. What it has done is flood Britain’s drinks aisles with aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame-K and co - chemicals with no long-term effect studies recorded in children, and lots of research red flags in their general consumption. The World Health Organisation has already linked regular sweetener consumption to higher risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes and even stroke. So we’ve swapped sugar for something potentially worse. Congratulations.

Taste hasn’t fared much better. Real sugar has balance, warmth, and that slow swell of flavour across the tongue. Sweeteners? Metallic, medicinal, tinny. Sanpellegrino blood orange used to be bold and brilliant. Now it tastes like pennies in Fanta. Diet ginger beer? Bit paint-strippery. And yet these are the “healthy” alternatives we’re told to applaud.

And then there’s the matter of fairness. A "full-fat" Coke now costs north of £2, while a litre of supermarket own-brand diet cola is 60p. So as a parent who makes a conscious decision to treat my child to a fizzy drink on occasion (because by nature, things with sugar are treats which are consumed occasionally, i.e. not regularly) I get penalised for choosing a drink with fewer ultra processed ingredients. And guess which one low-income families end up buying? As an esteemed economist at the Bank of England for over a decade (according to your own admission...), even you must know this is regressive AF. GCSE economics (and living life) taught me such taxes hurt the poor disproportionately versus the rich. Even the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs has called the sugar tax a failure that should be repealed, not expanded.

If you really want to tackle obesity, try something smarter. We’ve done it before. Remember the salt-reduction strategy of the 2000s? Quietly lowering salt levels bit by bit reset our taste palates without anyone feeling cheated. Why not do the same with sugar? Reduce sugar content in food and drink gradually, retrain taste buds, and ease-up on the chemical quick-fixes. Add bold front-of-pack labelling for sweeteners, so parents know what they’re buying. Invest levy revenue in healthier public options, like fizzy-water fountains in schools (I know, I know, sounds a bit bougie and which kid likes fizzy water - but we're talking about retraining palates), rather than padding manufacturers’ margins.

We haven’t solved the problem, we’ve just rebranded it. Britain is still addicted to blinding sweetness. Only now it comes with a halo of “zero calories” that’s arguably more damaging.

Sweetness should be a treat, not a loophole. It’s not your birthday every day, and you don’t need cake every day. But when you do, have one that’s worth the calories. Real sugar, real butter, real ingredients, real flavour. That’s being honest with health.

Yours sincerely,

Reshmi Bennett