UK-based wine businesses are “fed up” and cuts to the budget of the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) “risk the growth of a successful, homegrown industry”, Wine GB has warned.
Despite contributing “millions to the Treasury in duty and other business payments”, the UK wine sector got “very little in return”, claimed Wine GB CEO Nicola Bates.
And amid a 2.7% decline in Defra’s day-to-day resource budget in real terms over the next four years, confirmed by the Treasury today (11 June), wine and other food and drink businesses needed reassurances they would not suffer as a result of cuts to funding, Bates said.
“Our farmers and wine businesses are fed up,” she said. “The anticipated cuts to Defra’s budget are a disappointment and worrying.
“Despite contributing millions to the Treasury in duty and other business payments, our industry gets very little in return. This needs to change. We require the support of our government to further cement our position as an increasingly renowned producer of world-class wines, bringing money and skilled jobs into our countryside.
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Despite commitments to deliver “an agile, productive and digitally enabled state”, it was “not clear where the actual cuts will come from”, Bates said.
“There are large assumptions of efficiencies that can be achieved in this spending review,” she continued. “If these are not achieved, we need to be assured that support for food and drinks businesses will not be targeted instead to fulfil the cuts committed to today.
“We welcome the indication that there will be more funding for training and upskilling and for seeking to make the UK the best place in the world to do business. But, overall, there is barely any support for vineyards and wine businesses.
“We need the government to make sure that the Comprehensive Spending Review does not risk the growth of a successful, homegrown industry.”
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