Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff in her 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 she will make a statement.

Defra has around 500 staff working on a wide variety of trade-related roles across the department from trade policy to international negotiations and food exports to Sanitary and Phytosanitary trade assurance. Trade related roles are based across different business units in Defra, for example animal health or environment, as op-posed to being delivered through one specific trade unit.

Given the dispersed nature of trade roles across the department, and as trade may only form part of any given role, records do not exist for exactly how many staff have been allocated to deal with issues related to international trade in Defra in each of the past five years.

We are in the process of planning workforce arrangements for the next two years in line with the public spending commitments set out by the Chancellor of the Ex-chequer in the Autumn Statement.