It sometimes seems that to operate a small business these days you need to be a superhero.

Complying with all the legislative burdens that fly at you from every direction can be almost impossible, given that you only have the same 24 hours a day that the rest of the world has.

So much resource is required to keep up to date with ever-changing legislation and form-filling necessary to keep the army of Government inspectors off your backs.

Sometimes your reason for being in businesses - providing a livelihood for yourself, your family and your employees - has become a secondary aim.

The situation is just about to get even worse.

The Federation of Small Businesses has learned of at least two cases where the Government is being taken to court for clarification as to whether our laws comply with current EU regulation.

The first relates to the issue of employees' breaks.

Currently our laws state that employers must ensure employees "can" take their rest time, but (thank goodness) the employer is not required to ensure that they do. In practice this could mean that an employee could be prevented from working through their lunch hour to finish early to suit family needs. If the wording is changed, then this flexibility would almost certainly be lost. The second, crucially, is about health and safety relating directly back to the resource a business has available, which is especially important to any small business.

It is of serious concern that everything is still being designed around the "big" business without taking proper account of their smaller but in many cases equally important counterparts. Resource is not simply a question of cost, but is particularly about time - the time taken out of the working day to comply.

These developments are very worrying and it is imperative that the Government scores a victory with both of these cases to protect the system we have at present.

Small businesses consider their workforces are their greatest asset and take the issue of the health and safety of their workers very serious-ly. Equally they are invariably able to be more flexible in allowing time off, however, common sense and appropriateness is a key part of the deal and to a large extent this is contained within current UK law.

Most people understand that the law should be there to protect all its citizens in a fair and equitable way. Businesses have an equal right to expect laws to be fair.

* Mike Cherry is West Midlands Policy Unit Chairman for the federation of Small Businesses