Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether there has been a change in her Department's (a) departmental expenditure limit and (b) annually managed expenditure spending in the Indo-Pacific region since 16 March 2021.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
A) Yes, there has been an increase to the departmental expenditure limit spending in the Indo-Pacific region since 16 March 2021.
B) The Department for International Trade has not incurred any annually managed expenditure spending in the Indo-Pacific region since 16 March 2021.
The publication of the Integrated Review in March 2021 affirmed the UK’s increased focus and long-term commitment to the Indo-Pacific.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if she will set out her Department's forecast of (a) its total FTE and (b) the change in its FTE complement for each of the UK’s embassies and consulates in the Indo-Pacific region, broken down by (i) embassy and (ii) consulate for each year in the next five-year period.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department for International Trade (DIT) is forecasting to have the following Full Time Equivalent (FTE) numbers on 31 March 2023, these figures are the FTE caps in place because of last year’s business planning and the Spending Review (SR) settlement for the regions requested. The caps are applied to the entire region.
DIT has commenced its annual business planning round which will set resource plans for 2023-24 and provide indicative plans for 2024-25 and 2025-26 only, therefore we are unable to provide five year forecasts and breakdowns.
| FTE 23/24 |
Asia Pacific | 235 |
S Asia | 119 |
China Hong Kong | 188 |
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what recent assessment her Department has made of the extent of prohibitions or controls preventing or regulating goods, wares, articles, and merchandise imports with content manufactured in Xinjiang to the UK.
Answered by Ranil Jayawardena
I refer the Hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave to the Hon. Lady for York Central on 28 January 2022, UIN:108570.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if she will (a) list the spending programmes her Department devolves for administration to local government in England and other local spending bodies and (b) specify the value for each programme for every year for which budgets are agreed.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
While the Department for International Trade (DIT) work with delivery partners to provide support to the English regions in the forms of grants, the funding for such grants are not devolved, except for the Northern Powerhouse and Midlands Engine Key Account Management (KAM) programmes. The amounts allocated for the 21/22 financial year are £1m and £0.5m respectively.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what (a) policies and (b) grant and funding programmes her Department has introduced to provide support to individuals and organisations in response to the covid-19 outbreak; and what funding has been allocated to each of those programmes in the 2020-21 financial year.
Answered by Ranil Jayawardena
Through Project DEFEND, my Department has led cross-Whitehall efforts on securing critical supply chains, working alongside industry to ensure diversification of supply for the most critical of goods that are imported into the United Kingdom.
This has led to great successes, such as sourcing almost 31 billion items of PPE internationally, which were then procured by the Department of Health and Social Care and have been crucial to the country’s Covid-19 response.
Our network of International Trade Advisors has stepped up and supported business with advice throughout the pandemic too. Through Britain’s export credit agency, UK Export Finance, we have guaranteed bank loans, improving access to working capital and helping businesses to cope with temporary disruption to payments or in their supply chain.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what progress she has made towards securing a bilateral trade agreement with the Government of India.
Answered by Conor Burns
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what meetings Ministers of his Department have had with representatives of the Legatum Institute in the last 12 months.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Details of the meetings held by DIT Ministers are published on the Gov.UK website and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=department-for-international-trade&publication_type=transparency-data
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether, in his official capacity, he has met Mr Adam Werritty abroad in the last 12 months.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
No.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether any officials of his Department had their travel to or from the US affected by the US administration's recent changes to US entry regulations.
Answered by Mark Garnier
We are not aware of anyone being affected.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many of his Department's staff by (a) sector focus and (b) country focus are (i) UK-based and (ii) based overseas.
Answered by Mark Garnier
The number of staff employed by the Department for International Trade working on sector related activity either in the UK or within a country overseas is shown in the table below. The department has structured its organisation on a sectorial basis and has people based in in 109 Countries (including the UK) across 13 different sectors.
Sector Related Activity
Staff based in the UK | 389 |
Staff based overseas | 1250 |