THE department led by arch-Brexiteer Liam Fox racked up a £1 million bill on spin doctors in one year.
Last night, the SNP blasted it as an "expensive spin operation" for right-wing Tory Eurosceptics.
Data released under freedom of information laws shows the Department for International Trade spent £901,000 on salaries for communication staff from July 2016 to June 2017 and £114,000 on contractors.
Theresa May launched the ministry, which claims to be responsible for “championing free trade", soon after she became Prime Minister in July last year.
However, SNP MSP Stuart McMillan said the department had failed to serve any purpose before the UK leaves the EU.
McMillan, who sits on Holyrood’s Europe committee, said: “At that price we’d expect to know a little more about just what exactly Liam Fox's zombie department has achieved in the last 16 months – but the department is not one step closer to signing the promised trade deals with the wider world.
“The Department for International Trade just looks like an expensive spin operation for Liam Fox and the hard-line Brexiteer wing of the Tory party.
“Meanwhile, far from championing free trade, businesses in the UK will face rafts of tariffs and barriers if the hardline Brexiteers get their way and the Tories crash out of the EU without a deal.
“The Leave campaign promised an extra £350m a week for the NHS – but instead we face a multibillion pound divorce bill, spiralling bureaucratic costs in all three Brexit departments – and all while the Tories make deeper cuts to vital public services."
In response, a Department for International Trade spokesperson said: “We’ve helped secure more foreign direct investment projects than ever before, supported thousands of businesses to export their goods and services – including £262bn in services exports alone in the last year – and started work creating our own independent trading policy for the first time in 40 years.
“None of this would have been possible without a communications team that provides businesses and international investors with vital information on exporting and doing business in Britain”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel