Gregory Stafford

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct, and he pre-empts something I was going to say later about the inconsistencies and unfairness in the current system. Small producer relief is capped at 8.5% ABV, and the Government should look at what they can do for the smaller producers that he mentions. The TaxPayers’ Alliance has highlighted that the UK has the third highest wine duty in the world, now at £2.44 per bottle—an increase of 9p since 2023. By comparison, France charges the equivalent of just 2p per bottle and Romania 1p, and Spain applies no excise duty at all. In fact, half of the EU’s 27 member states do not charge duty on wine whatsoever. When neighbouring countries impose far lower rates, our competitiveness suffers. We pride ourselves on being a global trading nation, but we have priced ourselves out of the very markets we helped to create. Labour’s current approach is short-sighted and self-defeating: taxing ambition, throttling innovation and penalising productivity. The Treasury cannot build growth by breaking the back of the very industries that deliver it. As Winston Churchill put it in 1904, we cannot tax our way to prosperity any more than we can drink our way to sobriety. I turn to the inconsistencies and unfairness in the system, which my hon. Friend just mentioned. Products with an ABV of between 8.5% and 22% are taxed at the same rate per litre of pure alcohol, and yet producers of beer with an ABV of between 3.5% and 8.4% pay more than twice as much duty as producers of cider of the same strength. Small producer relief, although it is welcome in principle, is capped at 8.5% ABV and therefore excludes virtually all winemakers and distillers. This policy fails to support small English wineries such as Chapel Down—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam)—Nyetimber or Camel Valley, which I am sure Members are all familiar with, and which contribute to rural employment and agricultural production.