Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Overseas Territories are permitted to negotiate their own free trade agreements with third countries.

In international law the Overseas Territories (OTs) are not sovereign states in their own right and have no separate international legal personality. As such, they cannot enter into international agreements directly (including Free Trade Agreements), unless expressly authorised to do so by the UK Government under an entrustment. Agreements entered into by the UK may provide for their application to the OTs, or be extended to the OTs at a later date.