Alcohol Duty: UK Wine Sector

Scott Arthur Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

What a pleasure it is to serve under you this evening, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for introducing the debate so ably, and I agree with much of what he said. He presented a number of questions to the Minister on the operation of alcohol duty, but one question that was perhaps missing was around the health impacts of having the wrong level of alcohol duty in the UK. I will touch on that in my speech.

In my life, English wine has moved from being a feature of jokes on sitcoms to a premium product—sometimes in terms of price, but more importantly in terms of its quality. I am pleased to see that Scotland’s wine industry is also growing. In 2025, so far five new vineyards have registered with Food Standards Scotland. I hope that this industry will continue to flourish and grow. I am proud to have the North British Distillery, one of Scotland’s oldest and largest Scotch grain whisky producers, in my constituency; I would be in trouble if I did not mention it. I hope that any consideration to changes on alcohol duty covers the whole of the industry in the UK, rather than just one part of it.

As much as I want these industries to thrive, and I absolutely do, we must be conscious of alcohol’s public health implications. It is our responsibility to find the right balance, with an alcohol duty that works for businesses, as we have heard, but that also supports public health. We need an alcohol duty system that works for our wine industry, supports the hospitality sector and improves public health. I shall talk about informed moderation when it comes to drinking. I am not here to lecture anyone—I enjoy a drink, like everybody else—but I am a real advocate of awareness of the implications of consuming alcohol.

I am concerned about four things, really. I think that drinks are getting stronger; that has certainly been the case in my lifetime, and it is to the detriment of the taste of some wines. We are drinking more at home post covid, and that has real health implications. I also have to say that I am eating more crisps at home as well post covid. [Laughter.] It is a serious point, actually. Our hospitality industry is under huge pressure, and this impacts on the vibrancy of our high streets.

We have a duty to ensure that the public are aware of the risks of drinking. Recently, I met representatives from Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems. They told me that in Scotland in 2024, a total of 1,185 alcohol-specific deaths were registered. That was the lowest number registered since 2019—something that we should celebrate. It is perhaps, in least in part, due to minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland, but it still shows the damage that excessive alcohol consumption can do, and it remains too high in Scotland and elsewhere.

By choosing to consume lower strength alcohol, we can continue to enjoy drinking and the benefits that it brings us on social occasions, while also addressing the harms caused by alcohol. I welcome the fact that the Government are looking quite seriously to meet their commitment to label alcohol, just as we did as a country with cigarettes, to make people more aware of some of the risks that come with drinking. For example, the World Cancer Research Fund told me that alcohol-related breast cancer can be caused even by low levels of consumption of high-strength alcoholic drinks. Reducing the strength of alcoholic drinks can reduce the likelihood of this type of cancer. I have to say, they told me about this at the Labour party conference in Liverpool—not the best place to give people advice on drinking a little bit less. That is why I feel that a well-designed minimum unit pricing system across the UK is worth considering, alongside a meaningful and well-structured alcohol duty regime, but I understand some of the concerns around minimum unit pricing of alcohol.

Many people active in this sector look back to when Alistair Darling was Chancellor in the UK, and the changes that he made to the alcohol duty regime and how that directly related to improved health outcomes for people. That is something that we can learn from. I am always proud to say that I followed him, although there was someone between us, as MP for Edinburgh South West.

Alongside an effective duty system, it is also right that we encourage drinking in as safe an environment as possible, while supporting our hospitality industry. During a meeting with the Institute of Alcohol Studies last month, I was told that freezes in alcohol duty disproportionately benefit the sale of alcohol in shops, allowing supermarkets to maintain lower prices in comparison with hospitality venues. This is at the heart of so many pubs feeling the strain, because it is so much cheaper for people to drink at home than in pubs and other venues. Hospitality is a massive employer in the UK, and it is under huge stress. We need to look at taxation of alcohol right across the board to make sure that we are benefiting that sector while also reducing harmful drinking at home. An effective alcohol duty can support many of these jobs by closing the gap between the prices in pubs and supermarkets. That, in turn, encourages people to drink—hopefully, British-produced alcohol—publicly, which is far safer than consumption in private.

It is right that we take time to thoroughly consider alcohol duty, and make sure that it works for our wine industry and for businesses like the North British Distillery in my constituency. But we also have to see this debate as an opportunity to support the hospitality sector and improve public health. These are three really important things, and I do not envy the Minister in trying to reach a balance between them.