Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 9 June 2020 to Question 54850 on Wine: Imports, what impact assessment he has made of the costs and other burdens for (a) EU wine exporters, (b) UK wine importers and (c) UK wine consumers of the introduction at the end of the transition period of full VI-1 import certificates for wine imported into the UK from the EU .

VI-1s would be needed to cover most imports of wine. However, there are several exceptions to this requirement, such as for shipments of less than 100 litres, for personal imports or for trade shows. Defra has not estimated the number of certificates that will be needed, but we note that the industry’s representative body, the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, have suggested there will be in the region of 500,000 imports each year requiring VI-1

No impact assessment has been carried out on the costs for EU wine exporters, UK wine importers, or UK wine consumers.

We would expect the cost to EU wine exporters to be significant given the importance of the UK market to this major producing region. We note that the WSTA estimates that this would cost the EU export industry roughly £70 million per annum.

Whether the cost of producing VI-1 certificates will be passed on to UK consumers and importers is a commercial matter. It will be the EU producers’ responsibility to provide the VI-1 certificate and the responsibility of the relevant authority in each Member State to certify that the form meets the UK requirements.

The EU introduced the VI-1 form for third country imports, and will become subject to the rule themselves as they become a third country importer to the UK.

Despite this overhead, ‘new-world producers’ including Australia, New Zealand, USA, Chile and Argentina continue to import and currently account for 50% of wines on the UK market. UK consumers will still have a wide and varied choice of quality wine.