Their anxiety was fuelled by the Treasury’s decision last week to invite only the UK’s largest companies to sit on a new committee looking at tax policy.

Stephen Alambritis, spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses, said: ‘There’s a relationship between large corporation tax and small companies’ rates. If it is made more generous for multi-national enterprises, small companies’ tax rates will possibly go up.’

The Forum of Private Business said it was worried about the new tax policy committee’s conclusions mirroring what happened with corporation tax, when large firms benefited from a 2% cut while small firms suffered a 2% rise.

‘There is a concern that it will focus on the concerns of multi-national enterprises and that there is a trend to increase taxes for SMEs.’

He added that the lack of SME representation on the new committee was another example of the ‘pressing concerns of small businesses being sidelined’.