Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with which countries he and his officials have held discussions with about future trading options after the UK leaves the EU.

We are working with a wide range of countries to explore the best ways to develop our current trade and investment relationships and ensure that Britain becomes a global leader in free trade once we leave the EU. The Government has established working groups and high-level dialogues with a range of key trade partners to explore the mechanisms for liberalising trade. These range from mutual recognition agreements and the sort of outcome-based equivalence approach, recently advanced by the governor of the Bank of England, to being key members of multilateral agreements. We will consider multi-country alliances of the like-minded, right down to bilateral arrangements, using all the advantages available from our diplomatic network, to the system of Prime Ministerial Trade Envoys.