{"id":284386,"date":"2025-11-26T13:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T13:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/284386\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T13:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T13:04:09","slug":"government-to-tax-sugary-milk-drinks-in-new-health-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/284386\/","title":{"rendered":"Government to tax sugary milk drinks in new health plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some drinks in UK shops could get more expensive or taste a little bit different. <\/p>\n

From January 2028, the government is adding milkshakes, sweet coffee drinks, and sweetened plant-based milks (like soya or oat milk) to be included in its sugar tax. <\/p>\n

This is money paid by companies if they make drinks with a certain amount of sugar in them. <\/p>\n

The government will also lower the sugar content threshold at which the tax applies, from 5g to 4.5g of sugar per 100ml.<\/p>\n

The government says it is part of its plan to help tackle obesity.<\/p>\n

It says companies which make these drinks will have to reduce the sugar they contain or face paying the tax.<\/p>\n

The British Soft Drinks Association says the lowered threshold will be expensive for business but was relieved it wasn’t reduced to 4g per 100ml, which the government had been considering.<\/p>\n

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting announced the tax in the House of Commons on Tuesday, ahead of Wednesday’s Autumn Budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Officially called the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, it was first introduced in 2018 under the Conservative government. <\/p>\n

It already applies to fizzy and sugary drinks sold in cans and bottles. <\/p>\n

Now, it will also cover milk-based drinks with added sugar. <\/p>\n

These were left out before because milk contains calcium, which is good for bones and encouraged in children and young people’s diets.<\/p>\n

But some milkshakes and coffee drinks have lots of added sugar, so the rules are changing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some drinks in UK shops could get more expensive or taste a little bit different. From January 2028,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[102,6636,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-284386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}