Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by Baroness Fairhead on 26 October (HLWS1015), what was the recruitment process of those announced as members of staff for the Trade Remedies Authority.

On 26 October 2018 my Rt Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade announced, in a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament, that the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) Chief Executive Designate had been recruited as a member of staff to the Department of International Trade (DIT). It was also announced that the Chief Economist, Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel and Joint Chief Investigators had also been recruited to DIT, with the intention that they be transferred to the TRA once it is legally established through Royal Assent of the Trade Bill, subject to the will of Parliament.

I can confirm that all of these members of staff were recruited through a standard Civil Service external recruitment process in accordance with the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles April 2018. These principles set out the rules and procedures which Government Departments must follow in order to ensure that appointments to the Civil Service are made on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. A Civil Service Commissioner chaired the recruitment competition for the TRA Chief Executive Designate and was responsible for, among other things, ensuring that the recruitment process followed these principles.