The Forum of Private Business (FPB) has today called on the government to consult more widely on the needs and issues for small business.

The renewed call comes as Parliament’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Select Committee continues its sessions looking at small businesses and productivity.

Ian Cass, Managing Director of the FPB, said: “Smaller businesses are being careful, working on tight margins and not taking on too much debt, and the government seems to keep criticising them for this. All our members ask is that government makes it simpler for them to do business and to give them a level playing field to operate on, but government continues to complicate doing business and favours larger businesses. Hopefully these committee sessions will change the current status quo.”

Industry representatives at these sessions also remarked on the lack of access to digital technology for some of the SME and micro business community.

Ian Cass said: “We keep hearing about the need for small businesses to invest in new technology, but there seems little awareness of the cost implications of doing this and poor communication of the benefits for a small business of such an investment.”