§ Mr. David ShawTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the achievements of his Department and his policies in helping small businesses over the last 12 months relative to the previous 12 months; and if he will publish the performance indicators by which his Department monitors those achievements and the statistical results of such monitoring.
§ Mr. StewartThe Government continue to place a high priority on helping small businesses, through improvements to the business climate, through deregulation and through specific programmes of support and assistance.
1016WSmall businesses are of crucial importance to the Scottish economy and are continuing to benefit from the comprehensive schemes of support which the Government have introduced. My Department has overall responsibility for assisting small firms in Scotland while specific schemes are delivered mainly through Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the network of 22 local enterprise companies. In addition to providing services specific to Scotland, these bodies also have responsibility for the delivery and monitoring in Scotland of United Kingdom services on behalf of other Departments including the Department of Trade and Industry. Measures operated directly by my Department to assist small business includes the regional enterprise grant for investment, regional enterprise grant for innovation and regional selective assistance. For the period 1991–92 my Department made 106 offers of regional selective assistance to the value of over £14.5 million to small companies—those employing fewer than 200. This contributed to the creation of 2,120 planned new jobs and the safeguarding of 310 existing jobs. Under both the investment and innovation elements of the regional enterprise grants scheme, 360 offers to the value of £3.9 million were made in Scotland in 1991–92 to companies employing fewer than 25 people, contributing to the creation of 1,450 planned new jobs and the safeguarding of 1,210 existing jobs.
The success of these and other Government policies is demonstrated by statistics for VAT registration. A total of 9,800 additional companies registered for VAT in 1980. In 1990 the comparable figure was 14,900, an increase of 52 per cent. At the end of 1990 the total number of VAT-registered businesses in Scotland was 115,100, an increase of 21,700 or 23 per cent. on the comparable figure for 1979.