Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if her Department will make an estimate of the administrative cost to wine sellers of the an alcohol excise duty regime based on taxing wine by strength.

In August 2023 the Government introduced reforms to alcohol duty so that products are taxed in proportion to their alcoholic strength, not volume.

To help the wine industry adapt to the new duty system, the temporary duty easement was introduced as a transitional measure, which was intended to allow time for wine producers to adapt to calculating duty based on alcohol by volume.

Whilst the new system of wine labelling allows product labelling to 0.1 per cent ABV, this is optional, and wine can still be labelled to the nearest 0.5 per cent ABV.

By the planned end-date of 31 January 2025, the wine industry will have had over two years to adapt to the new strength-based system.