Recommendation 7

In addition to the programme of negotiations, the Department also needs to implement and review existing agreements.14 The Department told us that it has set up governance committees to provide an overview of how FTAs are being implemented in practice and to discuss issues arising. However, these implementation processes are at relatively early stages.15 We asked the Department about the work it may need to do to renegotiate the continuity agreements that the UK was originally party to as an EU member, where the EU may have made certain concessions without any benefit to the UK. The Department told us that the picture is mixed, and with some of these agreements, the UK made a clear commitment to come back to the overall deal to consider further opportunities. These include Canada and Mexico (where the Department has already run consultations), and South Korea, Turkey and Switzerland, but the Department said that it is not the case that every country wishes to re-negotiate existing agreements.16 However, we note the important point that the Department’s workload is more than the headline negotiations.17