Tax on chocolate and fizzy drinks proposed by anti-obesity campaigner

Mr Fry said he supported David Cameron’s plan to consider introducing an ‘obesity tax’ on foods with a high fat content. However he said that it could mean that food companies would just move to selling their products to other countries, unless a tax was introduced all over the world.

He also warned bringing in a ‘fat tax’ to the UK could affect low-income families with young children who need a certain amount of fat in their diets to help their brain and nervous systems develop correctly.

In a television interview this week, the Prime Minister said he was considering following in the footsteps of Denmark, who recently introduced a surcharge on foods that contain more than 2.3 per cent of saturated fat, including butter, milk, cheese, meat, oil and processed foods.

Mr Fry said, ‘Children need fat. We shouldn’t be fooling around with that. Whatever tax is introduced, we need to make sure it doesn’t disadvantage low-income families.’

The childhood obesity campaigner suggested one way to tackle the problem would be to increase the amount of benefit the poorest families receive, so that they can afford to pay the additional tax and ensure their children are consuming essential fats.

Mr Fry also raised the question of introducing a tax on sugar, which would see a surcharge added to ‘indulgent foods’ such as fizzy drinks, chocolate, sweets, biscuits and cakes, which have no health benefit.

‘It’s a big deal getting a tax on fatty or sugary foods in the first place and once imposed it could be modified. Following Denmark’s move I think there will be a chain reaction across the world.’

Mr Cameron told Channel 5 News during a round of broadcast interviews at the Tory Conference in Manchester, ‘The problem in the past when people have looked at using the tax system in this way is the impact it can have on people on low incomes.

‘But frankly, do we have a problem with the growing level of obesity? Yes. Do we have a kind of warning in terms of - look at America, how bad things have got there - what happens if we don’t anything? Yes, that should be a wake-up call.’