Has taxation for unhealthy items, such as cigarettes, gone too far in the UK?

[Darandio]

Yes - I would prefer sugary drinks are taxed too - Coke, Fanta etc.

Which we already have here, the Soft Drinks Industry Levy otherwise known as the 'Sugar Tax'.

 

[Starmill]

I would be happier (and no doubt healthier) if junk food were more expensive. However, I'm in the privelaged position of being able to do my own cooking, which is something that not everyone is. If people were empowered more by the necessary facilities, time and confidence to actually make more food from scratch for themselves, they'd be probably be a bit healthier. But the cause of the obesity epidemic is mainly political, and driven mainly by poverty. I should add that my cooking is still incredibly basic, and I am still a bit overweight.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Which we already have here, the Soft Drinks Industry Levy otherwise known as the 'Sugar Tax'.

Oh wow -never knew that, a great start imho (we need one in the USA but those midwest farmers that grown corn for high fructose corn syrup would go into a frenzy and lobby like crazy)

 

[Bald Rick]

However, I'm in the privelaged position of being able to do my own cooking, which is something that not everyone is

I wouldn’t describe being able to cook / prepare food as a privilege. Surely it’s a basic human right.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I would be happier (and no doubt healthier) if junk food were more expensive. However, I'm in the privileged position of being able to do my own cooking, which is something that not everyone is. If people were empowered more by the necessary facilities, time and confidence to actually make more food from scratch for themselves, they'd be probably be a bit healthier. But the cause of the obesity epidemic is mainly political, and driven mainly by poverty. I should add that my cooking is still incredibly basic, and I am still a bit overweight.

Yes not an easy one to solve. I too am incredibly privileged and also a bit overweight. The climate does not help either in the UK. I can grill on my BBQ virtually every night. If me and the wife fancy a burger, we get a decent beef patty, grill it myself on the BBQ put it on a bun with some raw onion and fresh tomato and possibly salad and hey presto a good healthy meal. Not everyone especially in the UK can do that because the weather is so unpredictable.

I hope that some good comes out of the Covid crisis with more people walking and cycling. That will help.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I wouldn’t describe being able to cook / prepare food as a privilege. Surely it’s a basic human right.

Agreed it SHOULD be a human right as should affordable healthcare (which it is in the UK mainly). Sadly it does seem a bit of a privilege.

 

[Bald Rick]

Oh wow -never knew that, a great start imho (we need one in the USA but those midwest farmers that grown corn for high fructose corn syrup would go into a frenzy and lobby like crazy)

18-24p a litre. It’s had a dramatic effect already in the sugar content of drinks. Results from Mexico (3p a litre) show it works.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes not an easy one to solve. I too am incredibly privileged and also a bit overweight. The climate does not help either in the UK. I can grill on my BBQ virtually every night. If me and the wife fancy a burger, we get a decent beef patty, grill it myself on the BBQ put it on a bun with some raw onion and fresh tomato and possibly salad and hey presto a good healthy meal. Not everyone especially in the UK can do that because the weather is so unpredictable.

You can as easily do that indoors using, er, a grill!

18-24p a litre. It’s had a dramatic effect already in the sugar content of drinks. Results from Mexico (3p a litre) show it works.

Coke has also changed its marketing - the sugar-free varieties no longer have less attractive packaging, but instead all of it is red just with a bit of highlighting of which version it is. This pushes the idea that they're all equivalents and not that the "all red" can is the king.

 

[Bald Rick]

If me and the wife fancy a burger, we get a decent beef patty, grill it myself on the BBQ put it on a bun with some raw onion and fresh tomato and possibly salad and hey presto a good healthy meal.

anyone with a grill or oven can do that. Probably better for the environment than using a BBQ!

Even better for the environment would be not having the Beef, of course.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

You can as easily do that indoors using, er, a grill!

Tried it - I always seem to set the damned smoke alarm off though!!

 

[Wolfie]

I am currently in shock having been relieved of £13 in Tesco for 20 Benson & Hedges Gold


My latest "fag run" to Luxembourg last weekend was cancelled by The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's untimely intervention.

Had I been able to go I would have been sourcing stock at around £5 a packet for the same product in much nicer packaging.

The economics of travelling abroad to purchase cigarettes on the surface sounds insane, but if you are bringing 200 packets back with an £8 saving on each it soon put things into perspective.

Having not purchased any cigarettes in the UK for years I hadn't realised how far the price differential had expanded.


The excise duty on tobacco is surely a regressive tax as it disproportionately affects the poor who form the bulk of smokers these days. Can you imagine the outrage that would be generated amongst the chattering classes if Alcohol was taxed at the same level ?


As a footnote I have arranged a trip to Italy next week where I will have to pay the outrageous price of 6 Euros per packet to obtain my Benson & Hedges Gold. The trip has cost me just over £200 for a BA Holiday with an overnight stay in Venice. Such hardship to buy a a packet of fags .

Expect, once transition from the EU is complete, to lose the booze cruise option. The limit is likely to be 200 cigarettes....

 

[AM9]

Expect, once transition from the EU is complete, to loose the booze cruise option. The limit is likely to be 200 cigarettes....

Surely the 'booze cruise' days were when the 1 litre/200 snouts limits were in force. The short crossings ferries would offer virtually free trips over and back and gave travellers the drink and tobacco limits free in a carrier bag. They were the 'non-lander' trips. You weren't allowed off the boat on the other side.
Since then, it's been the 'drive over and stuff the car with as much as you can safely carry', trips.

 

[Starmill]

I wouldn’t describe being able to cook / prepare food as a privilege. Surely it’s a basic human right.

It is but it's also clear that not everyone can be expected to cook from scratch. Enough time and someone to give a bit of guidance and confidence are significant limitations, but having the facilities and ingredients is also necessary.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I wouldn’t describe being able to cook / prepare food as a privilege. Surely it’s a basic human right.

Also if you are hungry and not as well off/poor the tendency would be to go for something calorie dense and “comfort” rather than healthy

 

[mmh]

Yes not an easy one to solve. I too am incredibly privileged and also a bit overweight. The climate does not help either in the UK. I can grill on my BBQ virtually every night. If me and the wife fancy a burger, we get a decent beef patty, grill it myself on the BBQ put it on a bun with some raw onion and fresh tomato and possibly salad and hey presto a good healthy meal. Not everyone especially in the UK can do that because the weather is so unpredictable.

I hope that some good comes out of the Covid crisis with more people walking and cycling. That will help.

That climate link would work better if there weren't fat people in both cold and warm places. It's certainly the case in the US, or at least in the two places I know well, the San Francisco Bay area and Madison, Wisconsin.

Also if you are hungry and not as well off/poor the tendency would be to go for something calorie dense and “comfort” rather than healthy

And lots of those fat people aren't poor, and lots of the thin people are. It's almost as if individual tastes and choices are a factor.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

That climate link would work better if there weren't fat people in both cold and warm places. It's certainly the case in the US, or at least in the two places I know well, the San Francisco Bay area and Madison, Wisconsin.

And lots of those fat people aren't poor, and lots of the thin people are. It's almost as if individual tastes and choices are a factor.

I never said the answer is simple. It is complex.

 

[Bald Rick]

It is but it's also clear that not everyone can be expected to cook from scratch. Enough time and someone to give a bit of guidance and confidence are significant limitations, but having the facilities and ingredients is also necessary.

I agree that not everyone can be expected to cook from scratch. That doesn’t mean you are prevented from eating healthily.

And I struggle to believe that there is anyone out there who needs to buy food for themselves or others who doesn’t have the choice of buying healthy food, regardless of their capability of food prep.

 

[Trackman]

I don't smoke, but you can grow your own just as long you don't sell it like homebrew.

 

[Starmill]

I agree that not everyone can be expected to cook from scratch. That doesn’t mean you are prevented from eating healthily.

And I struggle to believe that there is anyone out there who needs to buy food for themselves or others who doesn’t have the choice of buying healthy food, regardless of their capability of food prep.

You are entitled to your opinions.

 

[Techniquest]

Also if you are hungry and not as well off/poor the tendency would be to go for something calorie dense and “comfort” rather than healthy

Or just downright lazy. Or feeling unwell, and the prospect of anything healthy goes out of the window.

I *can* cook, it's just I often can't be bothered. It's a lot of effort sometimes, so stuff that can be cooked quickly out of the freezer, or some chocolate, whatever it might be, is sometimes just the ticket.

However I would be interested in seeing a higher tax implemented on fast food/ready meals. It doesn't have to be a big increase, I'd reckon just a 1% increase in price would start getting noticed pretty quickly by the average consumer. Soon enough the extra price would make the decision more along the lines of 'do I really want that extra large meal from Burger King?' to actually include a more sensible option. Assuming one exists...

A hike in alcohol tax would be absolutely fine by me. I don't drink these days (only one I've had since 2nd January was a small glass of cava that got poured for me last month, the memo hadn't reached my host, and I didn't enjoy it that much anyway) so if an increase in the price of alcohol helped to reduce alcohol-fuelled issues, not to mention helping the obsesity crisis, then bring it on!

I commute by foot already, and now I've got past the 'woe is me, I'm injured and I'm hacked off' part of a recovery I crave sugary junk food far less. I still have some, things like chocolate digestives and such like do still get consumed but nowhere near as much. I'm on my bike most days for leisure rides, and I'm getting rid of the leg fat slowly! The gut however, it's not going and I'm working on a plan for that. My diet is far better in the last month than it was, so it's just a matter of figuring out the right additions to the exercise routine and being patient basically.

Sadly though, I do not think the obsesity crisis will go away any time soon...

 

[najaB]

Has Cigarette Taxation gone too far in the UK ?

As a non-smoker, I would say no, not nearly as I still find myself having to breathe in other people's smoke. But that's a non-smoker's viewpoint.

 

[najaB]

I *can* cook, it's just I often can't be bothered. It's a lot of effort sometimes, so stuff that can be cooked quickly out of the freezer, or some chocolate, whatever it might be, is sometimes just the ticket.

Food that can be cooked quickly out of the freezer, and healthy food are not mutually exclusive.

 

[scotrail158713]

Food that can be cooked quickly out of the freezer, and healthy food are not mutually exclusive.

But more often than not they will be

 

[najaB]

But more often than not they will be

Oh, without a doubt. Just pointing out that it is possible to eat healthily without having to cook from scratch. If you look at the nutritional information on a lot of the higher-quality pre-prepared food, it's not actually that bad. The issue arises when you want to combine that with eating cheaply.

To repurpose a saying from the computer industry: Fast, cheap, nutritious. Choose two.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

18-24p a litre. It’s had a dramatic effect already in the sugar content of drinks. Results from Mexico (3p a litre) show it works.

Coke has also changed its marketing - the sugar-free varieties no longer have less attractive packaging, but instead all of it is red just with a bit of highlighting of which version it is. This pushes the idea that they're all equivalents and not that the "all red" can is the king.

This demonstrates the "unintended consequences" of the sugar-tax rather well: rather than put up prices, manufacturers have changed their formulae to reduce the sugar content. In terms of preventing obesity that's a result, but does mean that the revenue from the "sugar levy" won't be as high as forecast.

An additional issue is the effect on people with type-1 diabetes, who either have to pay more for their "emergency can" or as it actually turns out, find it quite difficult to procure anything of the required strength- you don't want to be having to down 500ml of liquid to deal with a hypo! The "stealth packaging" of UK Coca Cola doesn't help with this either. If a product contains sugar or is the sugar-free version, they need to be easy to distinguish from each other.

 

[scotrail158713]

To repurpose a saying from the computer industry: Fast, cheap, nutritious. Choose two.

Sums it up perfectly actually

 

[Bletchleyite]

Food that can be cooked quickly out of the freezer, and healthy food are not mutually exclusive.

One good option which I do a lot is cooking a huge vat of chilli, curry, spag bol or whatever then freezing a load of it - hey presto, microwave meals costing next to nothing with genuinely healthy ingredients that taste better than any Tesco junk.

Want another portion? Chuck a tin of toms in.

 

[Bald Rick]

This demonstrates the "unintended consequences" of the sugar-tax rather well: rather than put up prices, manufacturers have changed their formulae to reduce the sugar content.

It wasn’t unintended at all, it was precisely what Government expected when it introduced the levy. Indeed it was announced two years before it came into effect, to allow soft drinks manufacturers sufficient tie to reformulate their recipes, which is exactly what they did.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It wasn’t unintended at all, it was precisely what Government expected when it introduced the levy. Indeed it was announced two years before it came into effect, to allow soft drinks manufacturers sufficient tie to reformulate their recipes, which is exactly what they did.

Indeed. The only real exception was "fat" Coke, where people will just stop buying it if the taste is changed, so they took the hit. They did however tweak with the branding (such as all bottles/cans red with a flash, rather than different colours) to make the non-sugar-tax versions more attractive.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

It wasn’t unintended at all, it was precisely what Government expected when it introduced the levy. Indeed it was announced two years before it came into effect, to allow soft drinks manufacturers sufficient tie to reformulate their recipes, which is exactly what they did.

And thus, the "grey market" of American import soft-drinks being sold at a premium in many shops was born!

Those imported cans of coke though have too much sugar to serve as a suitable option for people with diabetes. Tea with sugar is the best option if at home, even though it's both sacrilegious and a bit gross!