Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has plans to further increase the UK's bilateral relationship with Japan.

The UK-Japan bilateral relationship is a strong and wide-ranging partnership. It is an increasingly deep and broad relationship, encompassing close collaboration in areas from security and defence to science and innovation. Our economic relationship is going from strength to strength following agreement of our bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 2020, which we are now seeking to implement in full. In the security and defence space, Japan and the UK have agreed in principle the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) and we continue to work on closer collaboration on combat air programmes. As fellow members of the G7 and ahead of Japan's G7 Presidency next year, we look forward to continuing to grow the UK-Japan relationship.