Small businesses need effective Government support - Brooke

10.42.36am GMT Tue 6th Feb 2007

Annette believes existing small business support programmes need to be consolidated in order to be effective

Annette Brooke MP, Member of the Committee of Public Accounts, today said:

"I welcome the Government's decision, in response to concern by my Committee over the effectiveness of the Small Business Service, to downsize it as a smaller policy unit within the DTI. The new, slimmed down unit must now do what its predecessor never managed: justify its existence.

"The Department must also draw up a clear action plan for cutting the number of small business support programmes from the current total of 3,000 to fewer than 100. Britain's small businesses are too important for our economy for them to waste time and money trying to understand where to get support and attempting to cut a way through the present forest of regulation."

Annette Brooke, MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, was speaking as the Committee published its 11th Report of this Session which, on the basis of evidence from the Small Business Service (SBS), examined its work influencing government on behalf of small business and delivering business support services.