Press release: New Minister for Trade and Export Promotion starts at the Department for International Trade

As a former Business Ambassador for UK Trade and Investment with a strong background in global business, Baroness Fairhead brings a wealth of business and economic experience to the department.

Her responsibilities will include building strong relationships with UK exporting companies, helping smaller businesses export to the global market and overseeing the GREAT campaign to boost the UK’s global trade.

Baroness Fairhead will also bring together expertise from across government and the private sector to create a new export strategy that establishes a renewed culture of exporting across the UK.

The strategy will ensure the government puts the right financial, practical and promotional support in place to allow businesses to make the most of global opportunities and generate wealth for the whole of the UK.

As lead Minister for UK Export Finance, her work will put finance at the heart of trade promotion, and improve support for businesses to take advantage of new opportunities when we leave the EU – a key aim of the government’s Industrial Strategy.

Baroness Fairhead starts her new role at DIT as the UK’s trade deficit narrowed by £2.4 billion in the second quarter of 2017, this largely being driven by a narrowing of the trade in goods deficit.

International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, said:

As an international economic department our role is to promote the huge benefits of trade and help businesses make the most of global opportunities.

Baroness Fairhead’s wealth of business experience will help the UK boost exports, forge closer trading links with new markets, and ensure more companies can respond to the enormous appetite for British goods and services.

Minister for Trade and Export Promotion, Baroness Rona Fairhead, said:

I’m honoured to be appointed as the Trade and Export Minister at a time of unprecedented new opportunities for UK trade.

There is huge potential for growth as UK businesses meet the global demand for their world-class goods and services; I look forward to working with businesses of all sizes so we can forge a new culture of exporting.



Research and analysis: Environmental carrying capacities

Requirement R020

Requirement detail

To better understand how activities including but not limited to fishing, transport, energy, and recreation influence the ongoing functioning of the marine environment by exerting physical or chemical pressures.

Evidence on how activities influence the ongoing functioning and capacity of the marine environment is limited. It is important that this knowledge is improved to support the development of policies for the English marine plans, and to better assess licencing applications to ensure they maximise the sustainability of the environment.

At present, marine licensing is undertaken on a first come, first served basis except where marine plan policies provide a steer. In order to deliver sustainable development, consideration of environmental carrying capacities is required to allow effective prioritisation of projects within the limited capacity.

This work would seek to establish a methodology to identify areas most likely to be at risk from exceeding environmental capacity.

This work should focus on a case study area and include:

  • analysis of activities currently taking place including any likely increase or decrease in activity which will influence the pressure they put on the environment’s carrying capacity and any associated thresholds
  • identify and test approaches that can be used to measure environmental sustainability and support the marine planning and marine licensing process


Guidance: Monitoring beaches near Sellafield for radioactive material

Sellafield Ltd has to monitor beaches close to the Sellafield site to check for radioactivity. This beach monitoring programme is a condition the Environment Agency imposed on Sellafield Ltd when it issued them with an environmental permit.



Guidance: Sellafield radioactive objects intervention plan

The Environment Agency has developed this intervention plan with other organisations involved in protecting the public from radioactive objects.

This is a summary of how the different organisations will work together to:

  • protect the public and environment from any harm caused by radioactive objects on west Cumbria beaches
  • respond to a discovery of radioactive objects near the Sellafield site – a single find or an overall change in the find rate, activity or trends


Research and analysis: Alternative use of dredged material

Requirement R57

Requirement detail

Currently dredge material is usually disposed of at sea. The MMO wish to encourage and enable both the alternative use and re-cycling of dredged material. This will help maintain coastlines, ecosystem services and sustainable development.

Re-used dredged materials conserve primary resources, especially in capital projects where dredged materials can provide fill for allied construction works. However to be able to ensure that these opportunities are maximised the MMO would like to better understand the barriers to the reuse of dredged materials.

This requirement includes increasing the understanding of:

  • which spatial and temporal circumstances enable successful re-use
  • where and how dredged material could be reused, and other projects that could incorporate alternative use
  • the costs to developers to carry out re-use/recycling projects
  • the potential to develop a marine alternative use regulatory toolbox for England to support better regulation
  • the legal classification of the designation of dredged sediment as waste and the relevant Environment Agency quality protocols