§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he will make a formal response to "Regulating Cyberspace—Better Regulation for E-commerce" published on December 2000 by the Better Regulation Task Force. [146854]
§ Ms HewittThe deadline agreed with the Better Regulation Task Force for submitting the formal Government response is 23 February 2001.
Thousand Users of SBS services Q1 April-June 2000–01 Q2 July-September 2000–01 Local delivery, 0–49 employees (EC definition of a small business)1 78.0 80.5 Local delivery, 50+ employees including no size information 27.0 23.9 Local delivery, individuals1 40.7 37.6 Nationally delivered services1,2 4.2 6.5 Gateway to SBS services call centre2 10.1 8.3 1 Only one use per business is recorded during each quarter. 2 Breakdowns between individuals and business, and business size are not available.
§ Mr. Heathcoat-AmoryTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if the Small Business Service has met its operational targets for(a) establishing an Index of Regulation on small business and (b) reviewing business support services and publishing the results. [146502]
§ Mr. ByersThe Small Business Service has studied the issue of the Index of Regulation and carried out preliminary consultations internally and externally. These highlighted a number of issues that need to be resolved before a decision can be taken on how to create an index. The SBS review of business support was issued as a consultative document on 2 October 2000. A revised document, taking account of comments received, was published on the internet www.businessadviceonline.org on 22 December 2000.