Food and Drink (Miscellaneous Amendments Relating to Food and Wine Composition, Information and Labelling) Regulations 2021

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness. I broadly welcome the regulations, but I have a number of questions. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on her clear introduction, but am I right that a grace period will now apply for the GB market until the end of September 2022, but there is no grace period for those products, particularly wine, being placed on the EU market from 1 January 2021? Those products now need to comply with the current EU labelling rules as we are a third country?

I am grateful to the Wine and Spirit Trade Association for its briefing in preparation for this afternoon. It has pointed other the SI includes a provision that means that businesses will no longer be able to use one label for the UK and EU markets at the end of the grace period—30 September 2022—for products placed on the GB market. It is calling on the Government to change the inherited EU wine labelling rules to allow businesses to use one label for both the UK and EU markets and to help ensure that the UK remains a hub for the world wine trade. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord German, for setting this out. I do not intend to repeat what he said, but this is a significant local, domestic and global trade.

There is a very simple plea from the Wine and Spirit Trade Association that the problem could be solved if the UK removed the requirement for the term “bottled by” or “imported by” and simply required a UK address on the label, as is currently allowed for food and drink, making one label acceptable for both the UK and EU markets. Otherwise, the rules as currently being rolled over will require a UK address on the label, preceded by one of the terms outlined in EU law, such as “bottled by”, with a UK address, or “imported by”, with a UK address. The EU will not accept any labels with those terms on if they are accompanied by the address of a third country.

For importers, either their producer will need to add a UK-specific label or a UK importer will need to have an over-sticker. Exporters will need to label stocks specifically for the EU market. This requirement for different SKUs for different markets means different labels, which, as the noble Lord, Lord German, pointed out, will increase costs for designing, printing and logistics. Simply put, if a business has 200 products, that means 200 additional labels. In addition, most businesses do not know where their stock is going when they add their labels. Over-stickering is very expensive for businesses as, in nearly all cases, it has to be done by hand. The more businesses have to change labels, the more expenses they need to incur. Businesses are usually given two years to allow for such label changes. I urge my noble friend the Minister to look very sympathetically on this idea of going to one label, as set out by the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, in her summing up.

My noble friend the Minister also referred to the report prepared by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which said that those are real-world effects on food information and the way in which it is presented to consumers, as set out in the regulations. For example, in relation to the origin of meat—excluding beef, which is dealt with in separate legislation—the instrument will require the use of a non-UK, rather than a non-EU origin designator. That new requirement does not preclude the use of a designator showing the specific country of origin. I welcome the fact that a 21-month adjustment period is given to give businesses time to adjust to the new requirement, and also applies to Wales and Scotland.

I should like to put a question to my noble friend regarding the fact that consumers will no longer be able to tell whether meat, excluding beef, is from the EU or not after the adjustment period. That will have the potential to reduce the key information available at present about the origin of a product and, therefore, about associated food standards. In response to questions from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Defra told it that,

“further steps will be taken to continue unfettered access for Northern Ireland food products to the GB market”.

Can she set out what the separate measures will be and when they might be taken? Will the House have the chance to scrutinise them before they come into effect?