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Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has announced in the Budget that a tax on sugary soft drinks will come into force by 2018 to tackle childhood obesity.

Osborne, said: "I am not prepared to look back at my time here in this Parliament, doing this job and say to my children's generation: 'I'm sorry - we knew there was a problem with sugary drinks. We knew it caused disease, but we ducked the difficult decisions and we did nothing'."

The 2018 date has been set to allow the industry time to adjust, the Chancellor said. £520 million is expected to be raised and will go towards primary school sports.

The campaign for a tax on sugary products began to gain momentum when Jamie Oliver partnered with charity Sustain and launched a petition, which gathered over 100,000 signatures.

Since then, serparate research from Public Health England, Cancer Research and UK Health Forum, plus recommendations from The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) earlier in 2015 have all suggested that a sugar tax and reduction in the amount of sugar consumed would help solve the obesity crisis.

Malcolm Clark, co-ordinator of the Children’s Food Campaign, welcomed the Budget announcement today on a sugary drinks tax.

He said: “The Chancellor has taken a bold step in what we hope will be a key pillar of the Government’s forthcoming Childhood Obesity Strategy.

"On its own, a sugary drinks tax won’t solve the UK’s childhood obesity crisis, which is why it needs to be coupled with robust restrictions on unhealthy food marketing online and across all forms of media, including a 9pm watershed for TV advertising of junk food, alongside a series of other measures on reformulation, labelling and the provision of healthier, more sustainable food in our communities."

The Children's Food Trust also welcomed the move, but warned that the tax would not be a silver bullet to childhood obesity. 

CEO, Linda Cregan, said: "Sugary soft drinks are a big source of sugar in children's diet, particularly as they get older, and don't give children any nutritional value. So we welcome every step to encourage us all to buy sugary soft drinks less often, and to keep manufacturers focused on reformulation of their products.

"But we have to remember that this tax isn't a silver bullet - it's just one tool to help in the fight to get children eating and drinking more healthily, and we look forward to the full set of 'game-changing' actions government has promised to deliver in the forthcoming childhood obesity strategy."