§ Mr. Sillarsasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he is able to estimate the number of jobs provided by the small business sector in each planning region of the United Kingdom; and if he will show these figures as a percentage of the total employment in each region.
§ Mr. GoldingThe precise information requested is not available from my Department's statistics. However, some indication can be had from the Annual Censuses of Employment, but these provide information relating to individual workplaces rather than to complete businesses. The census unit, which is the basic unit for which information is reported, is normally a complete individual address such as a shop, office or factory. The416W branches of multiple firms thus constitute separate units. In some cases, there can be more than one census unit for a single address. This happens where the firm supplies information for different groups of employees, e.g. the monthly and weekly paid, on separate returns.
Analyses of these census units covering all industries and services except agriculture and horticulture and private domestic service, for addresses in each region, are given in the following table:
EMPLOYEES IN EMPLOYMENT: JUNE 1975 Percentage of total employees in each region employed at census units in the following size ranges: 1–10 employees 11–49 employees 50–199 employees South-East 13 22 24 East Anglia 14 24 23 South-West 16 25 23 West Midlands 11 19 21 East Midlands 11 19 22 Yorkshire and Humberside 11 19 22 North-West 11 18 21 North 11 21 20 Wales 13 20 22 Scotland 13 23 23 Northern Ireland 14 22 26