Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

My Lords, I am not quite clear what the Minister was actually offering here, but I should stress that it is clearly completely inappropriate to treat companies with a turnover in excess of £25 million and more than 250 employees as large companies, which is what the Bill presently does. These small and medium-sized businesses are as much the victims of late payment as smaller companies. It is clear—and I trust that both sides of the Committee would agree—that the definition needs changing to an appropriate size, whether by using the R&D definition that fits reasonably well and on which Grant Thornton has done the research, or another definition. However, the SME definition is clearly inappropriate. I beg to move.