Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether her Department has considered the potential merits of increasing the involvement of the UK's diverse diasporas in trade delegations; and whether she has made a recent assessment of the diversity of trade delegations.

The Department for International Trade (DIT) aims to be a diverse, inclusive department that is representative of the communities we serve. DIT supports and embeds the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion strategy to promote fair representation within the workforce, with a number of actions to support increased representation of underrepresented groups.

This includes the Export Strategy, within which our commitments will be underpinned by improving our data on diversity and inclusion in international trade. Recent trade delegations have included DIT support to the Tavola Food and Drink Trade show in Belgium in March 2022, where DIT supported 20 businesses, 10 of which were from an ethnic minority background, to exhibit their products.