Mr. Chris Macey:

It found the reformulation began literally as soon as the programme was announced, which was two years before it was introduced. By 2019, a year after its introduction, 35% of the sugar consumed from sugary drinks was taken out of the system. The impact of that in calories per year was 6,500 calories per year per resident of the UK. Many people do not consume sugary drinks, so when we take people consuming those drinks at high rates, the drop was bigger. As there was a shift to low-sugar and sugar-free drinks, research has found there was no long-term damage to industry, meaning no jobs were lost. In the main body of sugary drinks, the consumer has not ended up paying more because they have just shifted onto the low-sugar drinks that are not additionally taxed. Thus, it has been a win-win-win over there and now the UK is looking at extending it beyond sugary drinks to all high-sugar products. There was a proposal that was taken on board, but due to the cost-of-living crisis it has been long-fingered for another year.