What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the businesslink.gov.uk website.

Since its formal launch in May 2004, nearly 13 million user sessions to the site have been logged and the number of visitors is increasing monthly. There were 600,000 site visits in October, with a minimum of 160,000 coming from repeat visitors. More than 200,000 of those users downloaded material such as business publications, grant application forms and legislative guidance. The site receives a continual flow of positive feedback from the small business community and its significance has been recognised by a prestigious plaudit—it was named by the UN world summit awards as the UK's best business website for best e-content application.

I commend the website for the advice it offers on pay-as-you-earn, value added tax, corporation tax, health and safety and the like, but as one who comes from a small business background I urge the Minister to ensure that organisations such as Revenue and Customs, local government environmental health departments and business advice centres do more to promote the site. What does he intend to do to make sure that small businesses throughout the country are aware of the site and encouraged to use it as a partner in their business development in years to come?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, not only for his interest in the site but for his efforts to improve e-governance generally—a subject on which he has recently made valuable contributions in the House. Businesslink.gov is at the forefront of our e-government initiative and user numbers are hugely encouraging. We have made great strides in making business aware of the site's potential, but I welcome his comments on ensuring that it is more widely known throughout the country.

My hon. Friend talked about the way in which there should be link-up with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and an integrated approach. He will be interested to know that we are introducing an integrated service to enable customers to register for and access e-filing services provided by Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and Companies House. That has required a major change in the way in which the departments provide those services. It is expected to lead the way in the development of further transactional services across government.