Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many staff with expertise in negotiating trade agreements his Department has hired since it was created.

The Department for International Trade was created in July 2016.

Since then, the Department’s Trade Policy Group has grown from around 45 staff to almost 600 staff today, bringing together trade policy and country specialists, as well as economic analysts, lawyers, research and statistical experts.