Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade during the debate on UK Export Performance of 18 September 2023, Official Report, column 1200, how many people work in the dedicated free trade agreement utilisation team as of 17 January 2024; and how many people he plans to work in that team on average over the next two financial years.

The Free Trade Agreement Utilisation team has around 20 full time employees who work closely with business-facing teams across the Nations and regions of the UK, teams based overseas, and across all of our Department’s export support ecosystem to raise awareness of our new FTAs and ensure business can seize the opportunities in those fast growing markets.

Future years' resourcing will be decided as part of business planning for each financial year.