Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to increase trade and business co-operation between Northern Ireland and a) Newcastle-under-Lyme and b) Staffordshire.

The Government is committed to strengthening trade and business cooperation across the whole of the United Kingdom.

Last year, I established Intertrade UK which aims to promote and boost trade in goods and services across the United Kingdom and ensure that the benefits of the UK Internal Market are fully realised by businesses.

At the Autumn Budget, the Chancellor allocated £2.25 million over the next three fiscal years to support Intertrade UK to implement its work programme to improve trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Intertrade UK is now considering how best to deploy this new funding and I look forward to seeing the results of its future work.

Through our Industrial Strategy, we are also supporting growth in eight identified sectors, fostering opportunities for collaboration where Northern Ireland shares industrial strengths with regions such as Staffordshire.