The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland regularly speaks with a range of stakeholders in relation to the return of devolved government and will continue to do so over the coming weeks and months.

This department supports businesses in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland on the ground through our Trade and Investment Hubs, ensuring businesses across the UK can access the right support at the right time. These Hubs increase our capacity to engage nationally on trade policy issues and influence regional thinking so that we drive competitiveness and investment in all nations.

Yes, indeed. I have made it absolutely clear to our EU friends and partners that we want to make our relationship work, but it is also absolutely essential that there should be untrammelled free trade and exchange of goods, people, services and capital through all parts of the UK. We will do everything we can to ensure that that is the case, including, as I have said in the Chamber before and to the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, invoking article 16 of the protocol, if necessary.

The Government reached an agreement with the EU that guarantees no hard border on the island of Ireland. Under this Protocol Northern Ireland businesses will continue to be able to trade freely across the Irish border. The government will continue to engage with Northern Ireland businesses.

The British Irish Chamber of Commerce has come out in support of the Withdrawal Agreement, stating “It is clear that businesses recognise the huge efforts made by the Prime Minister and across government to reach this milestone – and it is NI Chamber’s opinion that any deal is better than no deal for business".

The Department for International Trade was created in July 2016.

Since the Department was created its Trade Policy Group has grown to around 470 people at the end of October 2018, bringing together trade policy, country specialists and experts on trade policy issues. A number of DIT staff in offshore posts are also undertaking work on market access trade policy issues.

The precise number of staff working on new free trade deals in 2019/2020 is yet to be decided.

Typically a trade negotiation will involve teams of differing sizes, depending on their complexity and would be staffed by the Department for International Trade (DIT) with the involvement of expertise from other Departments.

Other DIT staff at HQ and in overseas posts will also be involved in supporting the negotiators and for instance, handling relations with Parliament and external stakeholders.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. There are more crossing points in the 310 miles of land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic than there are on the whole of the eastern land border between the European Union and non-member states. However, I think that it will reassure the hon. Gentleman to know that both Mr Barnier, who was working in the European Commission at the time of the Belfast agreement, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union are very familiar with that border.

The UK supports a ban on international trade in polar bear pelts and other body parts as we believe this will help to safeguard the species. DEFRA officials have been working closely with EU counterparts through meetings and electronic communication to develop a common EU position on the proposed ban on international trade in polar bears and their products.

Illegal trade in rhino horn and elephant ivory is of great concern to the Government given the alarming rise in poaching and trafficking across Africa in recent years. We work closely with other nations and international organisations to tackle this and play an active role in the convention on international trade in endangered species (CITES), whose next Conference of the Parties (CoP16) will take place in March. Through this convention we have been able to strengthen the advice, assistance and tools provided to help range states enforce CITES controls, conserve wildlife threatened by unsustainable levels of trade and combat illegal wildlife trafficking.

The Government also supports a wide range of specific action to tackle illegal wildlife trade, including: contributing financially towards Interpol-led projects which build enforcement capacity in range states to conserve elephants and rhino; funding a post in the CITES Secretariat to help combat wildlife crime; and chairing the CITES Rhino Working Group tasked with investigating the drivers behind, and possible solutions to, the dramatic rise in rhino poaching. In order to reduce the amount of rhino horn entering into illegal trade in Asia, the UK

has also been instrumental in the introduction of a stricter approach across the EU to the issue of CITES licences for the re-export of rhino horn.

CoP16 presents an important opportunity to explore with the wider international community ways of securing better protection for species subject to unsustainable levels of trade and to combat illegal trade more effectively. We have yet to finalise our positions in respect of CoP16 proposals but elephants and rhinos will be high priorities for the UK during the conference.