Wine (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2024

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, noble Lords have many impressive attributes, but being in two places at once in person is not one of them. So, because my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville is moving an amendment in the Chamber, the Committee will have to put up with me.

I thank the Minister for his introduction to this statutory instrument. This is the second instrument on the provisions around wine in a short period of time. Is it a trend? Apparently, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has had something to say about the SIs in both cases and has drawn them to the attention of the House.

These regulations prohibit the labelling and marketing of wine as ice wine unless the grapes used have been frozen on the vine as opposed to being subject to freezing afterwards. I had always thought that genuine ice wine was exactly that: wine made with grapes frozen naturally on the vine, concentrating the sugar and making the wine both delicious and very expensive.

I understand that these regulations are necessary to fulfil the obligations in the CPTPP, which was signed by the Government in July last year and debated in the Chamber earlier this afternoon. I also understand that Canada is a major producer of ice wine.

This SI applies to wine for the English market only. The Minister mentioned that Scotland and Wales are progressing their own SIs, which will fit in with this one. Can he say when it is likely that those SIs will be in place? There is likely to be considerable confusion if this is not done quickly, as a bottle of wine is easily transported across borders; confusion could result.

There are also likely to be issues around the labelling of ice wine in Northern Ireland, which is subject to the regulations that exist in Europe and not those that will pertain under the CPTPP. Perhaps the Minister can say something about that.

As a member of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine since 2019, the UK now has to abide by the regulations adopted by that organisation, which, according to the Explanatory Memorandum, change on a fairly regular basis. This SI is temporary and likely to change again in 2025 when it will be revoked. Can the Minister provide any clarification on whether Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will at that stage have the same regulations as England—or will all four nations be operating under separate arrangements on ice wine? The SLSC raised the issue of confusion around different rules on ice wine being applied across the devolved nations, including for methods of production.

The Explanatory Memorandum, at paragraph 11.1, indicates that the Government

“will put the necessary guidance regarding measures contained in the instrument on GOV.UK”

once Parliament has approved it. Is it therefore safe to assume that this instrument will be presented to the Chamber tomorrow for approval and that the guidance will appear on the website later tomorrow afternoon? Given the likelihood of confusion, I would like the Minister’s reassurance on this matter.

The Wine and Spirit Trade Association is concerned about the excise duty system and the need to make permanent the temporary easement mechanism. This is the single most important issue for the UK wine sector. The temporary easement taxes all wines in the 11.5% to 14.5% ABV range at a single rate of the mean, I suppose: 12.5%. This is due to end on 1 February 2025. If this is not made permanent, UK businesses will encounter increased bureaucracy and administrative burdens, and therefore increased costs, so will the Minister speak to his colleagues in the Treasury to make this easement permanent and thus support our flourishing wine industry?

This is a fairly straightforward SI which is linked to the CPTPP, and presumably ice wine will begin to appear on our supermarket shelves correctly labelled in the fairly near future, but I do not think I will be able to afford it.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, it is very difficult to follow the noble Baroness after such an erudite speech, but I have a few quick questions to put to my noble friend. As I see it, this statutory instrument is being introduced only because we need to meet the requirements and obligations on the marketing of wine in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. There is nothing intrinsically necessary in the labelling of ice wine that would otherwise have required legislation.

I therefore turn to why we are doing this and why it was originally agreed. I am sure the Minister has had many a glass of fine ice wine, not least from Canada or Germany. The definition of ice wine is that the grapes are left on the vine, as my noble friend said, until the temperature drops to a specific level, which I think is between minus 8 degrees and minus 14 degrees Celsius, which allows the grapes to freeze naturally. Then, when the pressing takes place, they are quickly harvested and pressed while still frozen, the frozen water content remains in the form of ice crystals and only the concentrated sugary juice is extracted. If, by chance, the frost passes quite quickly and the pickers go to the same vineyard and take the grapes from the same vine during the day, when it is marginally above freezing, can that still be called ice wine?

Secondly, and related to that, the alternative method of making ice wine from grapes follows after the harvest: the grapes are harvested and then artificially frozen to a temperature similar to that used in the natural freezing on the vine method. Frozen grapes are pressed much the same and the concentrated juice is collected, similar to the process with the grapes frozen on the vine. They do not need to go through the technical stages that my noble friend has outlined; it could be exactly the same process. As I understand it, there is therefore a distinction to be made between ice wine that is made from grapes frozen after harvest and grapes frozen on the vine, although I challenge the Minister to tell me the difference, if he were given a blind tasting, between the two.

So the Minister comes forward with an excellent SI that says we cannot have anything that is

“a term similar to a term mentioned”

as ice wine. I would be interested to know what a similar term to ice wine might be. We always want to get the legislation exact. I imagine that a lengthy court case might ensue as a result of asking: what is “a term similar to” ice wine? Could it be called “frosty wine”, for example? Would that be “a term similar to” ice wine? I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Opposition, but I give the very fine officials who are sitting behind the Minister the opportunity to answer those two questions. It would be very helpful to me and, I am sure, to the Committee to know those answers.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for introducing this statutory instrument. I will not go into the details of what it is about; he explained it very well, as has the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but I have a few points and questions.

As we have heard, the SI is largely to give effect to the relevant part of the CPTPP because Canada is the major producer of ice wine. I have been to a number of vineyards in Canada that produce ice wine. In fact, I did splash out, buy some and bring it back. If you have not tried ice wine, it comes in lovely slim bottles and is very nice indeed. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, my recollection—I could be wrong—from the tours of the vineyards is that it has to be harvested when it is frozen; you cannot defrost the grapes, then pick them. It is important that we are protecting what is a very distinctive product, so we clearly support this SI.

While we are on the issue of the CPTPP, are there going to be any other SIs coming through Defra regarding trade and the CPTPP? I do not know if the Minister knows the answer but it would be quite interesting to have a heads-up on that. We have had, as the noble Baroness said, other SIs on wine. There may not be any other way around this, and it is no criticism, but Defra seems to come up with a lot of small SIs. Does it have to be like that? Could we do them en bloc to be a bit more efficient?

I was interested that in the Minister’s introduction he talked about the fact that this product is only imported; we clearly do not make ice wine in this country. It would be interesting to know the impact of this SI. How much ice wine is imported into this country? I had never seen it until I went to Canada. What percentage would no longer be able to be marketed and what is the actual impact of this statutory instrument? It would be interesting to know if it has been a problem for the wine trade.

The Minister also mentioned the Welsh and Scottish instruments that are likely to come forward through their legislation. Other noble Lords also mentioned this and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked about the timescales. I note that Defra’s response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s concerns, in its report, explained that there are already rules in place which mean that this should not be a problem. Even so, we need to get all our legislative ducks in a row, so it would be interesting to know the likely timescales.

Finally, I support what the noble Baroness said about the Wine and Spirit Trade Association’s concerns regarding tax and excise duty. It has raised a really important point and I support her request to the Minister that this is discussed with the Treasury and that the department looks at this seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

Before my noble friend sits down, I would like to press him on why, under new paragraph 8(d) in Regulation 2, it is deemed necessary by the Government to write

“a term similar to a term mentioned in point (a), (b) or (c)”

when those three sub-paragraphs are

“(a)‘ice wine’; (b)‘icewine’; (c)‘ice-wine’”.

It would be helpful to the Committee to give an example of a term that is similar to ice wine that would be covered by this statutory instrument.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

For the benefit of the Committee, it may be useful for me to go away and consider my noble friend’s question, so as not to detain the Committee any longer. I will of course go back and look at Hansard and if there is anything that I have not answered then I will write, circulate that to all noble Lords and place a copy in the Library. I hope that I have addressed the majority of issues raised and that noble Lords will approve this instrument.