Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to Article 8.82 of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, what assessment she has made of the steps taken by the Japanese Government to identify ways to expand access to and use of public government information for (a) all businesses and (b) small and medium sized enterprises since that agreement came into effect.

The UK values our cooperation and close work with Japan to implement this UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) successfully. The CEPA Open Government Data provisions encourage the publication of appropriate government datasets in an accessible format. These provisions are particularly beneficial to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as they can gain access to accurate and reliable datasets without having to collect the information themselves, which can be costly.

The Department for International Trade has committed to publishing a comprehensive evaluation report for the UK-Japan CEPA within five years of the agreement entering into force. This evaluation will cover a broad range of impacts, including the impact on SMEs.