Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what plans her Department has to engage with stakeholders in the higher education and research sector on potential free trade agreements with Brazil.

I refer my hon. Friend for Dudley North to the answer given to the hon. Member for Harrow West by my hon. Friend the Minister for Exports on 22^nd March 2021 (UIN: 168823).

The Department for International Trade engages regularly with higher education and research stakeholders through the United Kingdom-Brazil Education Working Group for Higher Education and is in discussions with the Group’s members to facilitate greater collaboration on transnational education, including mutual recognition of degrees (under- and post-graduate degrees), industry-academia relationship, and language policies to internationalisation. We aim to promote a virtual trade mission later in the year to foster further partnerships between British and Brazilian universities.