A WELL-KNOWN restaurateur who is chairing a commission to improve Scotland's attitude to healthy eating has dismissed calls for a sugar tax.

Pressure for a tax has been growing over the last few months but Shirley Spear, who is founder, co-owner and former head chef of the celebrated Three Chimneys restaurant on Skye, remains to be convinced.

Speaking at the weekend, she said: "If we put 20p on a large bottle of Coke, will it stop people buying it?

"When we've added tax to cigarettes or alcohol, people have still kept buying them. I think we need to change things at production level, whereby we target the manufacturers rather than the public."

TV chef Jamie Oliver has been at the forefront of demands for a "big and bold" sugar tax on fizzy drinks, telling a House of Commons health committee last October that it would be the "single most important" change that could be made. It has been estimated a 20 per cent sugar tax could raise up to a £1 billion a year.

That same month, Public Health England called for a sugar tax of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent as one of its recommended "key actions" to tackle people's addiction to sugar. In Scotland, calls have been made for the Scottish Government to enact such a tax.

A recent report suggested that a "fat tax" including a sugar tax to curb obesity in Scotland will be introduced by Holyrood ministers this year, but also quoted Public Health Minister Maureen Watt as saying that the Scottish Government had no plans to introduce a food tax.

Mrs Spear was appointed chairwoman of the Scottish Food Commission last February by Food Secretary, Richard Lochhead.

The 16-member group was tasked with taking the "next steps to helping Scotland become a Good Food Nation, and improving the country’s attitude to eating fresh and healthy produce".

In an outspoken interview with the Sunday Times, Mrs Spear expressed concern that the rise of "yummy mummies" demanding "me time", and an increasing focus on celebrity TV chefs, could be contributing to the poor Scottish diet.

She said: "I'm of that generation that always cooked and made time for the family as opposed to now, when everyone wants to make time for themselves - 'me time', time to exercise or have your nails done. I think it is a very generational thing."

It could be intimidating, she added, to see high-profile TV chefs producing perfect dishes, with viewers realising that they could never match the result. "Perhaps cooking is on too much of a celebrity and television scale, where everything looks really classy and flash. We have to get back to basics."

She also referred to families with "big joint incomes" in which parents microwaved ready meals and spent time ferrying their children to dance classes or football practice, "when they could perhaps use their knowledge to better effect". "They are doing it because they want a more convenient lifestyle," she added.

Mrs Spear said her big idea was for every Scottish town to have a "food hub", with community cafes and community-run fruit and vegetable shops receiving the rates rebates given to charity shops.

She added that people who use foodbanks could be steered into running community cafes and learning how to cook, "so they don't just leave with food but with skills as well."