Draft Wine (Revocation and Consequential Provision) Regulations 2023

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 General Committees

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Wine (Revocation and Consequential Provision) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. The regulations were laid before the House on 25 October. I am proud to support our thriving wine market, which is one of the largest in the world and which had a total value of over £11 billion in 2022. The Government want to provide a regulatory landscape that enables the wine industry to be as innovative and productive as possible.

With this statutory instrument, the Government seek to take advantage of leaving the European Union. For the first time in decades, we can set our own wine regulations. We are therefore delighted to take the first historic step in providing flexibility for our wine industry. This instrument brings welcome flexibilities on how wine can be produced and labelled. These reforms are pragmatic and respond to calls for change from the wine industry.

First, the instrument will amend importer labelling requirements by removing the requirement that imported wine must show the prefix “importer” or “imported by” before the address of the business responsible for importing the wine to England. Doing so will apply general food law to wine labelling, and the intention is that the change will reduce the need for winemakers and bottlers to have separate labels for the UK and EU markets. That will reduce costs and remove administrative burdens.

The second change removes a restriction on new applications for wines with a protected designation of origin. That will enable new wines with a protected designation of origin to be produced from any permitted grape variety or hybrid variety, rather than just from the species Vitis vinifera. The change will ensure that our domestic wine sector increases resilience in the face of climate change and diseases.

Thirdly, the instrument will allow producers in England the scope to produce and sell piquette—a beverage produced by adding water to grape pomace, which is then fermented. That is an exciting and interesting opportunity, which the Government wish to offer our wine producers.

The Government will continue to support the already thriving wine industry by enabling the blending of imported wine in England. That will enable the wine industry to blend different varieties of wine from the same or different origins, including wines from third countries, to achieve greater consistency in its products and to create entirely new products that respond to consumer tastes. The Government are delighted that the measure also offers the prospect of more British jobs in English wineries and bottling plants.

The instrument will remove the mandatory requirements for foil caps and mushroom-shaped stoppers to be used in marketing sparkling wine. It will also remove the wine certification scheme in GB. The Government opposed the policy as a European Union member. Now that we have left, we can seize the opportunity to remove that pointless burden.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that explanation. There is general acceptance that this is a positive measure. I was just reading the briefing note from the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, and I did not realise that we are the second biggest importer of wine in terms of quantity—we import 1.3 billion litres—and the 12th largest exporter. I looked through the impact assessment, but what impact will the bottling of blended wines have on employment? Will it be a positive as a result of this legislation?

[Mark Spencer]

We are really hopeful that it will be a significant positive and give flexibility to wine blenders here in the UK. It will also allow them to improve the quality of what they sell in UK markets and around the world. We very much hope that it will give the industry the freedom to be flexible and to respond to consumers’ changing tastes at the same time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Spencer]

To be clear, absolutely not. We will not have products that are regulated differently, but we will have an industry that is regulated differently in terms of blending. It will be possible for a winemaker in Cambridge to blend a wine in Cambridge and to sell it throughout the United Kingdom—it will still be possible to sell Cambridgeshire wine in Cardiff and Edinburgh—but it will not be possible for someone to blend a wine in Cardiff and to sell it in Cambridge. However, we hope our friends in Wales and Scotland will catch up.

The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions about labelling, and it is important to get across that it is fundamental to these changes that the consumer is not misled, and nothing in them will mislead consumers. People will have to be absolutely clear. It will not be possible for me to buy in some Australian wine, blend it with three grapes from Sussex, bottle it in Nottinghamshire and call it Nottinghamshire wine. Clearly, that would be misleading, which is not permitted under these regulations. We must be clear about the percentages, the blends of grapes being used and the origin of the wines.

That is all clear for those who are doing it, but the regulations do give importers flexibility to blend different varieties and types of wine to maintain a standard product throughout different seasons, because wines can change, and they can also change in transport.

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful for that explanation, but I support the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge on the Labour Front Bench. It would be in everyone’s interests to have a clear system of labelling, particularly when half the wines we import are bulk wines that are subsequently blended. Is there a particular point of contention with the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly? Is there a particular issue that is concerning them?

[Mark Spencer]

I am not aware of any specific concerns; I think it is more a question of timing. I do not want to imply any criticism of the Scottish or Welsh devolved Administrations, because positive conversations are taking place, and I am sure Scotland and Wales will get to these regulations in time. There is a much more established wine sector in England—certainly on the south coast—so it is probably a higher priority for the UK Government to facilitate these changes in England. That said, there is quite an established wine sector in Wales, which I am sure the Welsh Government will want to support as we move forward. However, the conversations remain positive and constructive, and I am sure any issues will be resolved in due course.

With that in mind, Mr Stringer, I ask the Committee to support the regulations, and I shall cease to speak.

Question put and agreed to.