Member

My fourth and final point is that reference is made to small and medium-sized enterprises—those with fewer than 50 and fewer than 250 workers respectively. I looked up the latest government statistics, which date from 2023. From those, we can see that 8,634,000 employees are employed in companies with fewer than 50 employees and 12,230,000 employees are employed in companies employing fewer than 250. So if there is to be any exemption for small companies, one is talking about a very significant proportion of the workforce—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, mentioned half the employed workforce in the private sector, which seems about right.