Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, on how many occasions (a) Ministers and (b) officials of his Department have met their counterparts in the US to discuss a UK-US free trade arrangement.

The United States-UK bilateral trading relationship is an important one and vital to our economy. Total trade between the UK and US in 2016 totalled £167.6bn and both sides have committed to deepening our commercial relationship further.

My Ministerial colleagues and I have regular contact with the US Administration, business representatives and others, including through our diplomatic missions in the United States, to support and increase investment and trade flows. To this end, we have established a Trade and Investment Working group dedicated to strengthening the bilateral trade and investment relationship between the UK and US.