Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many staff in his Department have been allocated to deal with issues related to international trade in (a) each of the past five years and (b) the next two years; and if he will make a statement.

It is impossible to provide an accurate number of staff allocated to deal with issues related to international trade within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), as this number has and will continue to flex in line with government and departmental priorities at any given time. BEIS’ interests in international trade span trade with the EU, trade with the rest of the world, and domestic policy and consequently officials may be working on international trade issues alongside their core roles. There is a team in BEIS who are solely dedicated to international trade and who act as a central point of co-ordination across the range of these workstreams. Over the past five years the headcount figures of full time employees for this team are 37.5 for 2018, 28.2 for 2019, 18.4 for 2020, 17.7 for 2021 and 16.8 for 2022.