Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent discussions he has had with independent SMEs on the impact of his Department's policies.

The UK has 5.5m SMEs and we are committed to hardwiring their voice into government policy, engaging with them in various ways including through roundtables, visits and events.

Hundreds of individual SMEs have been engaged across all sectors and regions as part of co-designing our SME Strategy, including through roundtables across key areas, such as High Streets, Markets and Finance as well as specific policy events such as at Wilton Park.

Engagement with individual SMEs will continue to be a priority pre and post-launch of the SME Strategy to assess the impact of these policies on SMEs across the UK.