Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many officials employed in his Department on 19 October 2017 have started negotiations with (a) other EU member states and (b) third countries on aviation agreements.
My Department has many years’ worth of experience and is well prepared for aviation negotiations and concluding agreements. Negotiating teams draw on wide policy and technical expertise, backed by legal advisors, as well as potential contributions from other relevant organisations such as the CAA, and often in close collaboration with industry experts from airlines and airports.
We have discussed and are actively working on all relevant aviation agreements with relevant countries, to ensure that we have the necessary successor arrangements in place to so that there will be no interruption in flights when we exit the EU.