§ Mr. Steenasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is his Department's definition of a small business.
§ Mr. TrippierThere are no hard and fast rules about defining a small firm and different definitions can be appropriate for specific purposes. In manufacturing, we stick by and large to the definition of 200 employees or less and use a variety of thresholds, usually related to annual turnover, in the other sectors.
Our views were set out in some detail in the article "How Small is a Small Firm" (British Business 22 June 1984) copies of which were placed in the Library.