© Stefan Wermuth / Reuters
The step comes as part of a strategy to tackle obesity among children. Statistics shows that every third child in Britain is obese by the time they leave primary school.
Under the new plan, food and drink enterprises will cooperate with the authorities to lower sugar levels in foods most eaten by children by 20 percent, with a 5 percent target in the first year, according to a consultation document published by the Treasury.
The government's health agency Public Health England will check the progress twice a year.
Obesity costs Britain's National Health Service (NHS) billions of pounds every year, Junior Finance Minister Jane Ellison said in a statement.
Soft drinks are the only huge source of sugar for children that is totally unregulated, according to the government. A can of soda contains nine teaspoons of sugar, with an average child getting much more than the recommended daily intake by having just one portion.
The companies, potentially impacted by the new regulations, are not happy with the plan, claiming that a third of children aged two to 15 is already obese or overweight.
The levy was a "punitive tax that would cause thousands of job losses and yet fail to have a meaningful impact on levels of obesity," said Gavin Partington, director-general of the British Soft Drinks Association as quoted by Reuters.
The suggested tax will cut the sector's contribution to the economy by £132 million (US$173 million) and put at risk some 4,000 jobs, according to the report by Oxford Economics.
By imposing the new levy on sugar drinks, Britain follows the example of France, Belgium, Hungary, Mexico and Scandinavian countries that have been levying similar taxes for years.
"UK plans to impose a sugar tax on soft drinks in attempt to tackle childhood obesity epidemic"
Seeing how government, namely, an untouchable consortium of psychopaths and deeply negatively polarized humans of supreme wishful thinking, could actually give the slightest slice of s**t for the 'plebescite' is regurgitated bullshit revamped and prepared for mass consumption (re: Smoking kills!).
I read it as "UK plans to steal money from soft drink buyers"
People already pay money for the poisonous cocktail that is soft drinks, which is a godsend for certain people of particular extraction. Alas, nothing can satisfy the ravenous greed that IS these people, if they can be called people.
And it's for your own good!
End rant.