Next PM urged to abandon Sunak's surcharge on wine

Sir Keir Starmer is being urged to abandon Rishi Sunak’s “sneaky” post-Brexit wine tax if he wins the keys to Downing Street this week.

- KATE DEVLIN

Britain’s wine drinkers will have to pay a little-known “sauvignon surcharge” from February next year, as part of changes brought in after the UK left the European Union. As the prime minister uses the election campaign to repeatedly accuse Labour of planning secret tax rises if they get into power, experts and industry leaders have called for his booze levy to be dropped.

They warn that it will lead to products disappearing from the shelves, raise the price of some red wines by more than 40p a bottle, and increase the number of tax bands for wine from one to 30. Now, in a letter to the country’s next leader, seen by The Independent, they say the next government “must act” to avoid “needless cost increases and unnecessary red tape”.

The call is backed by former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who told The Independent that the new tax “is complex and could lead to misunderstandings”.