Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, when she expects the UK to meet the Government's target for 80 per cent of UK Trade to be carried out under Free Trade Agreements.

The UK Government has secured trade agreements with 71 countries plus the EU. These partners accounted for 63% (£814bn) of UK bilateral trade in 2021. It is important to remember that when the Government adopted this target the United States was in ongoing talks on a free trade agreement (FTA) with the UK but has since taken a different approach to FTA talks under the Biden administration. The US is 16.6% of our total global trade. We continue to make progress, signing three Memoranda of Understanding at state-level to facilitate trade and investment opportunities.

Our Free Trade Agreement programme continues at unprecedented pace and scale. We are negotiating with seven partners concurrently – India, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Canada, Mexico, Israel and Greenland. We are also in preparations to begin negotiations on new trade deals with Switzerland and South Korea.

We have an ambitious programme, but it is the substance of trade deals that is important, not the timing.