Speaking at the third Small Business Conference, Rishi Sunak told delegates that ‘the deregulatory measures would simplify both non-financial and financial reporting for SMEs which is expected to save thousands of businesses across the UK around £150m per year’.

One of the major announcements was a plan to increase the number of companies which qualify as a smaller or medium sized business through a 50% uplift to the thresholds that determine a company’s size.

This would see the employee size threshold rise from 250 to 500 employees, which would mean around 1,000 more large companies could become SMEs.