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Small Businesses

Volume 459: debated on Tuesday 17 April 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many workers are excluded from the provisions of statutory recognition procedures as a result of (a) the 21-worker threshold and (b) employment status. (129004)

The statutory recognition procedure applies to GB employers who, together with their associated employers, employ 21 or more workers. It is not possible to estimate precisely how many workers are employed in organisations which fall under this threshold. However, at the start of 2005, the estimated number of employees working in UK enterprises with 19 or fewer employees was 4,764,000. There are no estimates of the number of workers who are excluded from the statutory procedure because of their employment status. However, because the definition of “worker” used for the purpose of the statutory procedure is broad, the number is likely to be relatively low.