§ Mrs. HumbleTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of those in employment work in small and medium sized businesses. [157502]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mrs. Joan Humble, dated 1 March 2004:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning what percentage of those in employment work in small and medium sized businesses. (157502)
The latest available information is published in the National Statistics bulletin "Small and Medium Enterprise Statistics in the UK for 2002" which shows that 47.6% of those in employment work in small and medium businesses. A small business is one with fewer than 50 employees and a medium business has 50–249 employees.
The bulletin is available free of change on the following website: http://www.sbs.goy.uk/content/statistics/tablessmestats.pdf