By failing to release a report on reducing sugar consumption, Tories hamstrung their own obesity strategy

A sugar tax is not a silver bullet, but we are left with the impression that it remains the most effective weapon in the Government’s armoury

Jamie Oliver has called for a tax of 20 per cent per litre on the cost of sugary drinks, which he said could raise £1bn (Rex)

Wait your turn, and all will become clear. That was the message from the head of Public Health England (PHE), Duncan Selbie, who appeared before the Health Select Committee on 19 October, accused of sitting on evidence that might run against the Government’s forthcoming obesity strategy. PHE was originally scheduled to release its report, Sugar reduction: responding to the challenge, in July – but now, thanks to an arrangement between Mr Selbie and the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, it will only be released alongside the obesity strategy itself. The suspicion has been allowed to develop that the evidence it provides on the prospect of a controversial “sugar tax” does not align with the wishes of Downing Street.

Dr Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative MP and chair of the Health Select Committee, has been vocal in calling for the report’s immediate release. She is quite right to do so, and the optics of her intervention do not reflect well on the Conservative Party. Not only is Dr Wollaston accusing her own side of a cover-up, her words carry the weight of 20 years’ spent in general practice.

Moreover, the record of Mr Hunt – who Dr Wollaston suggests pressurised PHE to sit on the report – fails to impress on matters of transparency and the public interest. He became far too close to the Murdoch media empire in his previous role as Culture Secretary, and it would be no surprise if Mr Hunt was once more placing the interests of the Conservative Party over those of the British voter.

The smartest thing the party could do now – for the benefit of its own reputation as much as the public – would be to release the Sugar report, and weather whatever storm follows. Fail to, and there will be many who view the obesity strategy as a Westminster stitch-up. The whiff of corporate interference in matters of public health has previously hung over the Tories. Their belated U-turn on plain packaging for cigarettes came after a barrage of accusations that Lynton Crosby, the party’s chief strategist, was too close to the tobacco industry. In that case the raft of evidence that plain packaging reduces smoking levels was to win out.

It is to be hoped that the party will prove similarly flexible when it comes to a sugar tax, though that appears unlikely. David Cameron has shunned the idea, preferring to continue with government initiatives that ask industry to voluntarily reduce sugar levels. This approach was scorned by the World Health Organisation, which claimed last year that the British Government’s lax approach to regulation was contributing to the rise in obesity rates.

If the PHE report does, as expected, mark out the benefits of a sugar tax on fizzy drinks, such recommendations deserve a proper hearing. After Mexico introduced a 10 per cent tax on the price of fizzy drinks the country witnessed a 6 per cent fall in consumption. That is a large gain for a relatively low-level duty. Britain’s Chief Medical Officer has announced that such a move may indeed be necessary in the UK. Spending the tax receipts on programmes targeted at the poor would allay concerns that bumping up the price of a can of Coca-Cola would hit those on low incomes the hardest.

A sugar tax is “not a silver bullet”, said Mr Selbie. That may be true, but by failing to allow the public to scrutinise the PHE evidence , we are left with the impression that it remains the most effective weapon in the Government’s armoury – and one the Conservatives are simply unwilling to use.