Trade unites behind WSTA to petition incoming government on duty easement
With the UK general election just a whisker away and the current Prime Minster all but admitting a crushing defeat, the WSTA has issued an open letter calling on the incoming government to make permanent the duty easement.
Co-signed by 57 leading businesses from the drinks sector, the letter urges the next government “to commit to making the temporary easement for wine between 11.5% and 14.5% permanent ahead of its planned expiry on 1st February 2025.”
This rise would come on the back of the largest duty increases in almost 50 years, which have already added an average of 20% in duty on wine and 10% on spirits earlier this year.
Highlighting the £70bn that the wine and spirits sector generates annually in economic activity, the letter goes on to make clear that: “It is vital that the incoming government acknowledges that withdrawing the easement would create significant and unnecessary one-off and ongoing running costs, as well as imposing unmanageable operations complexity.”
The coalition of signatories reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the drinks industry, running the gamut from Avery’s to Zonin, by way of Amps Wine Merchants, Cambridge Wine Merchants, Canned Wine Co, Enotria&Coe, Liberty Wines, The Wine Society, Treasury Wine Estates, Virgin Wines and the WSET, to name but a few.
The letter in full can be read here:
Letter to the Next Government on the Easement
Dear Sir
As a coalition of wine businesses from across the UK, we are publishing this letter to urge the next Government to commit to making the temporary easement for wine between 11.5-14.5% permanent ahead of its planned expiry on 1st February 2025.
It is vital that the incoming Government acknowledges that withdrawing the easement would create significant and unnecessary one-off and ongoing running costs, as well as imposing unmanageable operational complexity. Making the easement permanent would maintain one fixed duty payment for over 85% of wines across the UK market.
The UK wine and spirits industry generates over £70 billion in economic activity, and over 60% of the sector's 413,000 FTE jobs are supported by the hospitality sector.
An incoming Government should recognise this economic contribution and commit to working towards a sustainable and proportionate regulatory regime that helps to protect an SME-rich industry in the UK, including over 1,000 independent wine merchants. Since last August, businesses have already had to adapt to the largest duty increases in almost 50 years: adding an average of 20% in duty on a bottle of wine and over 10% for spirits.
A new Government must act. Maintaining the easement would be a common-sense, cost-proportionate solution, that maintains a stable trading environment for business.
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