Board of Trade

The Board is one of the government’s highest profile advisory bodies on trade and economic matters. It offers advice to the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and wider government on its trade and exporting strategy, provides intellectual leadership on trade policy and inputs views and specialist insights into relevant policy areas.

The President of the Board of Trade is the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP who is also Minister of Women and Equalities.

The Board was relaunched in August 2023 to focus it specifically on exports. This aligns it with the second of the Secretary of State for Business and Trade’s 5 pledges for trade: growing UK exports every year until we hit the Race to a Trillion (selling £1 trillion in exports a year to the world by 2030).

Advisers to the Board

Advisers to the Board act as external champions of UK trade and promote and advocate UK economic interests.

They are senior leaders with a wealth of expertise and years of experience in business, trade, exporting and/or the politics of trade and exporting.

The advisers are:

  • Minister of State (Minister for Trade Policy) and Minister for London – Rt Hon Greg Hands MP
  • Minister of State (Minister for Investment) – Lord (Dominic) Johnson of Lainston CBE
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business) – Kevin Hollinrake MP 
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Exports) – Lord (Malcolm) Offord of Garvel (Ministerial Deputy to the President of the Board of Trade)
  • Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – Rt Hon Christopher Heaton-Harris MP 
  • Secretary of State for Scotland – Rt Hon Alistair Jack MP  
  • Secretary of State for Wales – Rt Hon David Davies MP 
  • Hon Tony Abbott AC 
  • Ash Amirahmadi OBE  
  • Karen Betts OBE
  • Andy Bird CBE 
  • Ruth Chapman 
  • Tufan Erginbilgiç 
  • Paul Golding CBE
  • Sir Lucian Grainge CBE 
  • Lord (Daniel) Hannan of Kingsclere
  • Libby Hart 
  • Anya Hindmarch CBE 
  • Sarah Kenny OBE  
  • Lord Mayor of the City of London – Michael Mainelli
  • David Meller CBE 
  • Peter O’Kane 
  • Vivienne Stern MBE

Advisers are appointed for a 12-month period and may be reappointed. Additional advisers may be appointed as appropriate.

Board of Trade work

The Board of Trade holds quarterly meetings to help identify and address export barriers. The first meeting of the 2023 to 2024 board took place in September 2023 and marked London Fashion week with a board meeting, industry reception and investor breakfast.

The Board of Trade last met in February 2024. The focus was on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), with discussions on market access barrier resolution and progress against the Board of Trade’s workstreams. The Secretary of State and the advisers also visited several SMEs based at Tileyard in London and held a reception with industry to celebrate the Department for Business and Trade’s first anniversary and promote the department’s export support offer to SMEs.

In between quarterly meetings, advisers participate in other activities related to trade and exports with the Department for Business and Trade and other government departments. This includes International Trade Week events, overseas trade missions and the discussions and export action plans of the Board of Trade Subgroups on Innovation and Skills.

The previous iteration of the board met 14 times in the following locations:

  • London (June 2023)
  • Cardiff (November 2022)
  • Barrow-in-Furness (March 2022)
  • Derry-Londonderry (November 2021)
  • Glasgow (July 2021)
  • virtual (March 2021)
  • virtual (October 2020)
  • Belfast (May 2019)
  • Durham (February 2019)
  • Swansea (November 2018)
  • Coventry (September 2018)
  • Stirling (May 2018)
  • Preston (March 2018)
  • Bristol (October 2017)

From 2020 to 2022, a series of reports by the Board of Trade offering recommendations for government to consider. The Board now discusses and addresses solutions to diverse exporting challenges for UK businesses and sectors and may publish documents related to this work as appropriate.