Mr Brown's Business Council is made up of representatives of big business. The FPB's Campaigns Manager, Matt Hardman, said the developments were a concern: "Smaller companies make up the majority of firms in the UK private sector, employing over half the private sector workforce, and they are not represented by this Business Council."

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has been scrapped and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) has been created.

Gordon Brown said: "The new department will be responsible for creating the conditions for business success, developing deeper and more effective engagement with business, with the ability to promote the competitiveness agenda across critical areas of Government policy. It will provide support for the new Business Council."

The DBERR will make promoting better regulation across the business, public and voluntary sectors a priority, with the Better Regulation Executive (BRE) moving to the new department to lead that work.

Mr Hardman said that will be no easy task given its other responsibilities: "Most of the work of the DTI on productivity, business relations, energy, competition and so on, will continue under the DBERR and it will also take on the Better Regulation Executive. I hope this will not prove to be a cumbersome creation by Gordon Brown."

The FPB is writing to both the Prime Minister and John Hutton MP, the new Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to engage with smaller companies.