§ Mrs. RocheTo ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 14 November,Official Report, column 315, what information his Department collates regarding (a) the percentage of UK small and medium firms which export, (b) the figures in each EU country and (c) the EU average. [6555]
§ Mr. Page[holding answer 28 November 1996]My Department has collated estimates from two independent sources on the percentage of small and medium enterprises which export; these estimates are set out in the table. The European Commission defines a small or medium enterprise as one that employs fewer than 250 employees. The table does not give the percentage of small and medium enterprises that export according to this definition, nor can it be derived from the published information.
There is also no information on the sample sizes or the general quality of the data.
Mr. TaylorThe Director General of Fair Trading has a responsibility for monitoring developments in the industry. Several agreements between newspaper publishers to rationalise newspaper delivery have been furnished to the Office of Fair Trading under the provisions of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1976 and have been placed on the public register of restrictive agreements. The Director General of Fair Trading is considering whether any of the agreements contain significant restrictions which warrant scrutiny by the restrictive practices court.