AGRICULTURE: BUSINESS

Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills how many businesses in England were registered as agricultural businesses in each of the last five years. [204540]

Michael Fallon: Numbers of agricultural businesses registered for either VAT and/or PAYE in England are provided in the table.

These estimates are drawn from the ONS publication ‘UK Business: activity, size and location’, which provides information on the number of active VAT and/or PAYE registered businesses in the UK. Any smaller non-employing businesses that are not registered for VAT will not be included. This publication is available at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/bus-register/uk-business/index.html

Number of Agricultural businesses in England registered for VAT/PAYE
2009 87,985
2010 86,695
2011 88,325
2012 87,775
2013 92,115
Notes: 1. The figures are based on all VAT/PAYE registered businesses in the SIC industrial classification sector ‘01 Crop and animal production, hunting and related service activities. 2. A small number of businesses were not included on the Inter Departmental Business Register before 2012; the effect at this level of detail is not known but the statistics given here for 2009 to 2011 may be slightly lower than if those businesses had been included.

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