George Osborne has announced a four-point Conservative plan to help smaller businesses.
The shadow chancellor stressed that small and medium sized companies are "the lifeblood of our economy".
He said that the party will "consider the feasibility" of aligning the period of charge for the national insurance and income tax systems.
It could also become mandatory for all government bodies to list their available contracts on a website so that small businesses can bid for them.
The Tory deregulation taskforce will also set out "clear proposals to embed a more business-oriented culture throughout government".
And the party will also examine proposals to increase the level of small business involvement in adult education policies at both local and national level.
Visiting the Forum of Private Business, Osborne praised smaller firms for "generating competition and expanding consumer choice".
"I believe that government should be helping those running small businesses, not making their lives harder as this chancellor has done," he added.
"A new direction is needed - one that helps small companies grow, instead of strangling them at birth."
FPB chairman Len Collinson said it was time to get to grips with the issue of red tape.
"There is no doubt that over recent years smaller businesses have felt burdened by regulation in all aspects of the economy," he said.
"They are beginning to show a reluctance to employ people because of the increasing red tape."
And headed that to allow small businesses to win contracts from Whitehall and its agencies "the government will have to intervene".
"The US administration specifies a percentage of public contracts that must go to smaller companies, this is supervised by the US small business administration," he noted. "Why not something similar in the UK?"
