Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what estimate his Department has made of the time and resources required to negotiate UK accession to the PEM Convention with existing members.

No decision has been made on UK accession to the PEM Convention. As set out in the Trade Strategy, we are now engaging business and PEM partners to consider the potential merits of accession and launched a Call for Evidence on 17 November. A decision to seek to join the PEM Convention will only be taken if it is in the national interest and reflects business sentiment. It would be premature therefore to comment on the nature of hypothetical negotiations or the resources that might be required to engage in them, hypothetically.