Wine Standards Board merges with Food Standards Agency

The Wine Standards Board (WSB) will merge with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on 1 July 2006, Defra announced today. The merger will help simplify and reduce the number of enforcement bodies currently operating in the United Kingdom.

The merger is one of the recommendations of the Hampton Review, published in March 2005 to simplify the enforcement activity in England and reduce the number of enforcement bodies . It will result in the FSA taking over responsibility for enforcing the EU wine regime in the UK.

Minister for Sustainable Farming and Food, Jeff Rooker said:

“I welcome this merger because it will help to reduce the burden on the wine industry through greater use of risk-based and targeted inspections, which in turn will bring benefits for consumers too.

“I am pleased that officials in Defra, the FSA and WSB have been able to work closely to implement Philip Hampton's recommendation quickly.”

Deirdre Hutton, Chair of the Food Standards Agency said:

“This is good news for the WSB and for us. We are delighted to welcome the team here and we will be working hard to exploit synergies between us.

"In particular we are looking forward to expanding our expertise and sharing our experience on sampling and verifying the authenticity and composition of wines in order to protect consumers in this very important market."

Following the merger, policy responsibility for wine-making practices, labelling of wine and the vineyard register will transfer from Defra to the Food Standards Agency. Defra will retain policy responsibility for all other aspects of the CAP wine regime and for industry sponsorship.

Notes to editors

1. The WSB, a small Non-Departmental Public Body, is the competent authority for enforcing the CAP wine regime at wholesale, trader and producer level in the UK. Its 10 staff will transfer to the FSA as from 1 July 2006.

2. CAP wine rules are directly applicable in Member States. Provision for their enforcement in England and Northern Ireland is provided for in the CAP (Wine) (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2001 (the “principal regulations”), as amended by 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 wine amendment regulations. The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly make parallel regulations.

3. In 2004 Philip Hampton was asked to review the burden on business of regulation, inspection and enforcement. In his report to the Chancellor, Philip Hampton recommended that the enforcement landscape should be simplified; in particular 31 enforcement bodies should be reduced to 7, helped by the expansion of the FSA to include the work of the WSB.

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