Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether she has made an estimate of the changes in UK imports and exports resulting from the covid-19 pandemic in this financial year.

The Department does not produce UK trade forecasts. The latest official figures from the Office for National Statistics (year to end February 2020) reports UK exports at £702.4bn (up 6.1% on the previous year) and imports at £714.2bn (up 1.5%). The impact of COVID-19 on UK trade would not yet have been apparent in these figures.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) produce the official UK Economic and Fiscal Outlook forecasts. Although the OBR published a COVID19 reference scenario in April, this scenario did not include trade forecasts – the OBR’s latest trade forecasts (March 2020) do not include the impact of COVID-19.