§ Mrs. RoeTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what information his Department has collated on the number of small and middle-sized enterprises which have stopped trading in the past 12 months as a result of increases in employers' compulsory liability insurance premiums. [130901]
§ Mr. BrowneWhile we have received representations about businesses being forced to close as a direct result of increases in their employers' liability insurance906W premiums, conclusive or comprehensive evidence has proved very difficult to obtain. A particular obstacle is the difficulty of disaggregating premium increases as a cause from other factors. For vulnerable companies with low profit margins or debt problems, premium costs might well have been another contributory factor to business failure, but no definitive figures exist.