§ Mr. Ashdownasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list those measures introduced by his Department within the past year and intended to be of benefit to small businesses.
§ Mr. ButcherMy Department always tries to be sensitive to the needs of small businesses. The recently published White Paper "Building Businesses…Not Barriers" (Cmnd. 9794) lists measures taken since July 1985 to benefit businesses both large and small. Some184W measures, such as the procedure introduced by the companies registration offices in September to remind companies, six weeks in advance, of their filing obligations will be of particular value to hard-pressed small business men.
In addition, the following measures specifically to help small firms have been announced in the course of the past year. An advisory service ("Support for Marketing") is being set up to assist and encourage small and medium sized firms to develop or improve their marketing strategies. Funds will be made available to subsidise the use of outside consultants.
A new competition with £1.25 million available to finance highly innovative ideas in instrumentation and biotechnology has been launched. The scheme is called the small firms merit awards for research and technology (SMART) and is aimed at small firms and start-up companies.
A package of schemes, along the lines of the existing business improvement services designed to help small businesses starting up in steel, shipbuilding and textiles closure areas, was introduced in March 1986 in the declining fisheries areas (Blackpool, Hull and Grimsby travel-to-work areas). Subject to EC approval, a further package of schemes will be introduced in the Penzance and St. Ives travel-to-work areas in the wake of the close of the Geevor tin mine.
Additionally, last autumn the British Overseas Trade Board set up a small firms committee which will be considering new initiatives aimed at encouraging small firms to export. It has recently commissioned some research into the reasons why smaller firms often fail to export to their full potential or, indeed, at all.