Answer from Hansard

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Gareth Thomas)

Our small business strategy will be published later this year and will set out our plans to champion entrepreneurs, improve access to finance and help small and medium-sized enterprises to reach more markets and adopt new technology. As I alluded to earlier, we are developing our plans for our new business growth service, simplifying access to support and advice for small businesses. We are also tackling the challenge of late payments, including the introduction of a new fair payment code and upcoming legislation requiring large companies to report annually on their payment performance.