My Lords, these regulations were laid before the House on 12 January.
Leaving the European Union has given us the opportunity to look critically at the trade agreements we inherited from the European Union and to strike new trade deals on our own terms. The Government are a firm supporter of international trade agreements and the benefits that they can bring to our nation. As such, I am delighted that my department can deliver an essential strand of work to bring the free trade agreement, FTA, with New Zealand into force through the changes being made with this legislation. This will give the UK the necessary implementing measures to meet the obligations and ratify the New Zealand FTA.
The free trade agreement will, among other things, boost business with New Zealand by 60%. It will bring a further £800 million into the UK economy, cut red tape for businesses and ensure tariff-free access to the New Zealand market for British goods. The changes set out in this instrument will bring welcome flexibilities to how wine and alcoholic beverages can be produced and labelled. However, I would like to emphasise that, as this introduces flexibilities, it will not force a change in the labelling practices currently being used by producers and traders, who may choose to continue to label and market as they do now.
I will now set out the three changes this instrument makes to retained EU law. First, it will allow any wine product to show alcoholic strength to one decimal place, for example 12.2% or 12.7%, et cetera. Retained EU law generally limits wine to being marketed to whole or half units, for example 12% or 12.5%, and that will continue to remain a possibility for wine marketed here or exported. The concession to label wine to a single decimal place is not new. The possibility has already been extended to Australian wines by our wine trade agreement with Australia.
Secondly, the instrument will also introduce a change to rules concerning the labelling of grape varieties for wine marketed in Great Britain. Where one or more grape variety is listed on a wine label, the named varieties must total at least 95% of the content of the wine. Retained EU legislation requires this to be 100%. The changes will mean that up to 5% of the content may consist of varieties not shown on the label. This change already has a precedent in our legislation: where a wine label displays a single variety of grape, that variety must account for 85% of the content of the wine. Our domestic wine producers have warmly welcomed the flexibility this will bring.
Finally, these regulations will allow flexibility in how the terms “alc” or “alcohol” and “vol” or “volume” appear with the numerical alcohol content on all alcoholic beverages. For example, current rules require that “alc” appears before the numerical alcohol content of the drink, with “vol” after. This instrument will allow these terms to also appear together after the numerical alcohol content of the beverage.
Together, these changes will bring flexibility that will facilitate trade between the UK and New Zealand, with the UK importing £216 million of wine in 2021. We think the changes will be especially helpful to small producers in both countries who might wish to
exploit a niche for their product in that market but where the size of the order would mean a full label change would not be economically viable.
Our wine industry and producers firmly support the changes set out in this instrument and welcome the flexibility it provides. I hope that I have assured noble Lords of the need for this instrument. It represents just one part of the changes being made that will allow the benefits of our new free trade agreement with New Zealand to come into force. I beg to move.