Parliamentary reaction to the announcement and implementation of the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy: Applied thematic analysis of 2016-2020 parliamentary debates

Jones, C. P. et al. (2024) Parliamentary reaction to the announcement and implementation of the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy: Applied thematic analysis of 2016-2020 parliamentary debates. Public Health Nutrition, 27(1), e51. (doi: 10.1017/S1368980024000247) (PMID:38263748)

Abstract

Objective: The UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) (announced March 2016; implemented April 2018) aims to incentivise reformulation of soft drinks to reduce added sugar levels. The SDIL has been applauded as a policy success, and it has survived calls from parliamentarians for it to be repealed. We aimed to explore parliamentary reaction to the SDIL following its announcement until two years post-implementation in order understand how health policy can become established and resilient to opposition. Design: Searches of Hansard for parliamentary debate transcripts that discussed the SDIL retrieved 186 transcripts, with 160 included after screening. Five stages of Applied Thematic Analysis were conducted: familiarisation and creation of initial codebooks; independent second coding; codebook finalisation through team consensus; final coding of the dataset to the complete codebook; and theme finalisation through team consensus. Setting: The United Kingdom Parliament Participants: N/A Results: Between the announcement (16/03/2016) - royal assent (26/04/2017) two themes were identified 1: SDIL welcomed cross-party 2: SDIL a good start but not enough. Between royal assent - implementation (5/04/2018) one theme was identified 3: The SDIL worked - what next? The final theme identified from implementation until 16/03/2020 was 4: Moving on from the SDIL. Conclusions: After the announcement, the SDIL had cross-party support and was recognised to have encouraged reformulation prior to implementation. Lessons for governments indicate that the combination of cross-party support and a policy’s documented success in achieving its aim can help cement the resilience of it to opposition and threats of repeal.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Financial support: This project was funded by the NIHR Public Health Research Programme (Grant Nos. 16/49/01 and 16/130/ 01). At the time this study was conducted, CPJ, MW, ELR, HF, TLP, DT, JA, OA, SA were also supported in part by Programme grants to the MRC Epidemiology Unit from the Medical Research Council (grant No. MC_UU_12015/6 and MC_UU_00006/7) and the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence – funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration is gratefully acknowledged. HF received funding for her PhD studentship from the Economic and Social Research Council and Public Health England, and she has received further discretionary funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Lawlor, Dr Emma and Jones, Miss Catrin

Creator Roles

Jones, C.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Project administration, Writing – original draft
Lawlor, E.: Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – review and editing

• Authors: Jones, C. P., Lawlor, E. R., Forde, H., van Tulleken, D. R.Z., Cummins, S., Adams, J., Smith, R., Rayner, M., Rutter, H., Penney, T. L., Alliot, O., Armitage, S., and White, M.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Health
• Journal Name: Public Health Nutrition
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISSN: 1368-9800
• ISSN (Online): 1475-2727
• Copyright Holders: Copyright: © The Author(s), 2024
• First Published: First published in Public Health Nutrition 27(1): e51
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence