Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many officials in her Department are working on the negotiations on the application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

As of January 2022, the Department for International Trade had just over 600 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff working directly on trade negotiations.

The Department for International Trade operates a flexible resourcing model in order to maximise efficiency across our free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations. The number of staff working on a FTA at any one time will change depending on the stage and scale of the negotiations. Staff will also often be working across multiple negotiations.