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 have been employed by his Department in each month since June 2016.

The number of permanent payroll staff employed by month in the department since June 2016 is shown in the table below:

The increase in headcount is predominantly a result of consolidating Defra’s corporate services into the core department from across the Defra group and the recruitment of additional staff to support our comprehensive EU exit programme of work.