Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many trade negotiators are employed by his Department and how many were hired from (a) within the UK civil service, (b) the UK private sector, (c) from within the EU and (d) from outside the EU.

The Department for International Trade has a strong core of trade policy officials, which has quadrupled in size since 24 June and is continuing to grow. This includes policy and country specialists, as well as economic analysts and lawyers.

To date, recruitment has primarily been from within the Civil Service. We are currently running an external campaign for recruiting high quality individuals with a range of policy, negotiation and trade-specific skills and experience. This external campaign is ongoing.