The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated March 2010:
As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many small businesses there were in a) England, b) Eastern England and c) Southend West constituency in each year since 1997 (321899).
Annual statistics on business births, deaths and survival are available for 2002 onwards from the ONS release on Business Demography at:
www.statistics.gov.uk
Information on the number of active enterprises by parliamentary constituency is only available from 2004 onwards. The table below contains the latest statistics available on active enterprises with less than 50 employment for England, East of England and Southend West.
England East of England Southend West 2002 1,804,635 210,510 n/a 2003 1,833,435 213,670 n/a 2004 1,854,375 216,995 3,005 2005 1,871,830 219,080 3,030 2006 1,891,240 221,605 3,090 2007 1,953,335 228,505 3,120 2008 1,990,465 232,590 3,155 n/a = Not available.