Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his Georgian counterpart on maintaining diplomatic and economic ties between the UK and Georgia after the UK has left the EU.

I and my Ministerial colleagues have regular discussions with our Georgian counterparts and both sides have agreed that we look forward to maintaining the closest diplomatic and economic ties following the UK’s exit from the European Union. The UK’s commitment to Georgia as a valuable international security partner and regional democratic role model is unwavering. The Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, my Right Hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), visited Tbilisi in November 2016 as head of the UK delegation for the annual bilateral Wardrop Dialogue, which takes place at Ministerial and official level between our two countries. The Wardrop Dialogue was upgraded to strategic level in 2016, a marker of our continued commitment to Georgia. We are already the world’s second biggest investor in Georgia and over January-September 2016 bilateral trade was at £100 million, a 50 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2015.