Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he plans to take to support the wine industry after February 2025.

The Government has supported the wine industry with duty freezes at 6 of the last 12 fiscal events, including the decision at Spring Budget 2024 to freeze alcohol duty until 1 February 2025.

As part of the new alcohol duty reforms, the Government has removed the sparkling wine premium, meaning sparkling wines now pay the same amount of duty as still wines of the same strength. As a result, an 11% sparkling wine now pays 61p less duty than under the previous duty system. While higher strength wines will be subject to more duty under the reforms than under the previous system, lower strength wines will be subject to less duty.

The Government has been clear that the wine easement is a temporary and transitional measure to support the wine industry to adapt to the new duty system by 1 February 2025. The Government is confident that the necessary changes are manageable within the time provided and that the wine industry has the information required to update their systems and calculate the correct duty.