Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many full-time equivalent staff within his Department were assigned to trade facilitation and market access barrier resolution in (a) 2026 and (b) 2021.

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) operates a flexible resourcing model to support trade facilitation and market access barrier resolution. The majority of this work falls within three areas: Economic Security and Trade Relations, Trade Group and DBTs Overseas Network. The total Civil Servant on-payroll FTE for these areas was 1,565 in November 2025, which is the latest data available (for DBT), and 1,006 in December 2021 (for DIT only).

Not all the Civil Servants identified are assigned exclusively to trade facilitation and market access barrier resolution and carry out additional duties that are unrelated to those topics.