Rural Affairs and Islands Committee [Draft]

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Official Report 809KB pdf

---

Subordinate Legislation

---

Wine (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024

Good morning, and welcome to the 33rd meeting in 2023 of the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee. Before we begin, I remind anyone using electronic devices to switch them to silent.

Our first item of business is consideration of an affirmative instrument. I welcome to the meeting Mairi Gougeon, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, and I invite her to make an opening statement.

Thank you, convener, for inviting me to talk about the regulations.

The purpose of the instrument is to amend legislation relating to the marketing and production of wine and wine products. First, it will introduce rules that will regulate how products that are marketed as “ice wine” must be produced, with the rules including a definition of ice wine. Secondly, it will update the lists of approved oenological practices that can be used to produce and conserve wine and wine products that are marketed in Scotland.

The relevant existing legislation happens to be European Union retained law, which, from 1 January, will be known as assimilated law. The ice wine provision in the instrument is required because the United Kingdom is acceding to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, and the provision is required for compliance with the terms of the CPTPP. Although ice wine is not produced in the UK, it is imported, and a definition of it is required to ensure that consumers can identify products that are made according to specified criteria that apply to its production.

The provision in question amends regulation EU 2019/33 to provide that products may only be marketed in Scotland as “ice wine” or similar terms if they have been produced

“exclusively from grapes naturally frozen on the vine.”

The same provision is being made across Great Britain.

Also included in the instrument are changes to approved oenological practices. Regulation EU 2019/934 authorises specified oenological practices that can be used to produce and conserve wine. The instrument amends the regulation to update those practices to reflect updates to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine’s—or OIV’s—approved methods, which largely already exist in EU law.

The UK is a member of the OIV, and its recommendations form the basis of domestic, EU and many third countries’ wine production rules. The instrument will ultimately ensure that wine producers and importers have access to the latest technological developments and wine-making practices, in line with EU law. The UK and Welsh Governments are making the same changes for England and Wales.

Before laying the instrument, the Scottish Government carried out a consultation through Citizen Space and directly contacted major stakeholders. The consultation ran from 31 August to 8 October. Although major stakeholders such as Wine GB and the Wine and Spirit Trade Association did not respond, they had previously responded to the UK Government’s consultation on the proposals, and the response to that was generally positive. There were five respondents in total to the Scottish consultation, which came from individual members of the public, and their responses advised that there would be either a positive impact or no impact from the proposed regulatory changes. The instrument was also notified to the World Trade Organization technical barriers to trade committee, but no comments were received.

I hope that my comments have been helpful in outlining what the instrument is for. I am, of course, happy to take any questions that the committee might have.

Do members have any questions?

This is a new one to me, cabinet secretary. You have mentioned the oenological practices and restrictions that will be brought in through the regulations. Will you explain what they are? You have also said that, according to some of the consultation responses, there would be no impact at all from the regulations. Is that because there is no real data on the amount of ice wine that is consumed in Scotland?

I will give a bit more detail on that. As I outlined in my opening comments, the instrument is, in essence, split into two parts. The definition of ice wine will not really have an impact on producers here, because it is not made in Scotland. It is quite a niche product that is, I think, largely produced in countries such as Canada and Germany.

From the consultation responses that we have received, it seems that there will be no impact in relation to the definition. Obviously there will be an impact on producers that use artificially frozen grapes, as they will no longer come under that definition, but, again, that will not affect our industry in Great Britain as far as I am aware. Perhaps Kevin Matheson has more to add on that.

The changes that are being proposed to oenological practices have been broadly welcomed, and there has been a positive reaction to them. They have already been implemented in the EU, where they have been seen as benefiting exporters and bottlers and encouraging innovation. Again, I do not know whether Kevin Matheson wants to add to that or whether I have adequately covered it.

No, I think that you have adequately covered it. That summary set out exactly what this is about—the changes are about oenological processes, practices and restrictions that we need to look at.

What are they? That is what I am asking.

They are quite technical in nature—there is an annex in the Scottish statutory instrument. Basically, they are about improving standards and regulation. The OIV meets annually and makes such changes after consulting the industry, but first it has to go through a seven-step process before it agrees anything. As I have said, the changes are quite technical in nature—there is a list in the SSI itself. Perhaps Judith Brown would like to expand on that.

As Kevin Matheson has said, they are set out in the SSI, which inserts some new provisions, slightly tweaks others in regulation 2019/934 and updates it with the most recent resolutions that the OIV has passed. The UK, too, votes as part of the OIV. The technical detail of what the changes will do is set out in the SSI.

Do you have further questions?

No.

We now move to the formal consideration of the motion to approve the instrument.

Motion moved,

That the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee recommends that the Wine (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 [draft] be approved.—[Mairi Gougeon]

Motion agreed to.

Is the committee content to delegate authority to me to sign off the report on our deliberations of this affirmative SSI?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. We will now suspend for 10 minutes for a changeover of witnesses.

09:08 Meeting suspended.  

09:15 On resuming—