Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many staff in his Department were working on new free trade agreements in February 2025.

DBT’s Trade Policy, Implementation and Negotiations (TPIN) Group operates a flexible resourcing model to maximise efficiency across priorities. DBT has committed to delivering six Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations alongside leading work on the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, work on the U.S., the reset of the UK-EU relationship as well as multilateral, implementation and market access work.

FTA staff numbers vary depending on the stage and scale of the deal. However, in July 2024, DBT had 640 staff working in TPIN and in January 2025 this number is 675.