Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of “heading towards a cliff edge” after it was revealed ministers bidding to sign multiple new trade deals are short of 135 experts.
The UK has opened post-Brexit trade deal talks with the EU and has ambitious plans to run parallel negotiations with the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in the months ahead.
But data disclosed to HuffPost UK, via a Freedom of Information request, has shown the government is still desperately short of staff, with trade secretary Liz Truss aiming to fill 135 vacancies for new jobs, including policy, legal and technical experts.
Her Department for International Trade (DIT) is scrambling to plug the workforce gap by the end of June, meaning it is aiming to hire at least one expert every day.
Campaign group for ethical trade Global Justice Now says the “lack of expertise” at the heart of government means ministers run a “real risk” of damaging the economy.
Director Nick Dearden said, if left unchecked, the staff shortage could see Britain crashing out of the UK-EU transition period in December and signing a “toxic” trade deal with Donald Trump “on the worst terms possible”.
The National Audit Office sounded the alarm in May that the DIT was short of staff, warning: “The new trade deals are large, complex, resource-intensive deals, and will require both specialist skills and staff from other government departments who have also created trade teams.”
But the FOI response shows the government has made little progress over the last 10 months, despite having spent £224,000 on recruitment.
People from across Whitehall with expertise in “policy, legal and analysis” have been drafted in to help both permanently and on an “ad hoc basis”, the government said.
“The country is heading towards a cliff edge here, where we are in serious danger of being forced to sign a toxic trade deal with Trump on the worst terms possible.”
- Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now
Chiefs have turned to specialist recruitment agencies Veredus and Russell Reynolds and are publishing job adverts both in the UK and overseas in a rush to fill the roles.
Negotiations with the EU opened earlier this month and the government has published a document setting out what the UK wants from a trade deal with America.
The prime minister has said that the NHS is “not for sale” in any trade deal.
He has also repeatedly insisted a fast-track deal can be struck with Brussels by December and refused to countenance any extension to the transition period, underlining that the public want to “get Brexit done”.
Dearden said “serious danger” remains.
He told HuffPost UK: “The government has been warned for months now that they lack the capacity and expertise to negotiate the trade deals which they’ve told us will be done and dusted by the end of the year.
“The idea that a country so lacking in trade expertise can do a deal with two of the world’s biggest trading blocs in under a year is both farcical and a real risk.
“The country is heading towards a cliff edge here, where we are in serious danger of being forced to sign a toxic trade deal with Trump on the worst terms possible.”
Barry Gardiner, Labour’s shadow trade secretary, added: “The department’s own assessment of its lack of negotiating power says it needs to hire one new trade negotiator every day from now until the end of June.
“It also says the EU free trade agreement will be negotiated by the end of the year. The public will make up their own minds as to how compatible those two statements are.”
A spokesman for the government said the UK’s negotiating team was comparable in size to America’s.
He said: “We have a similar number of negotiators to our largest trading partner, the US.
“We have all the key people in place to ensure we reach the right outcome for the UK in our future trade negotiations.”