Japanese Knotweed

Debate between Baroness Sharples and Baroness Wilcox

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sharples]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in eliminating Japanese knotweed.

[Baroness Wilcox (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Sharples, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

Directors’ Pay

Debate between Baroness Sharples and Baroness Wilcox

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

I am very happy to reassure the noble Lord that we mean pay—all of it—and that is why we said in the Statement that there would be one figure. One figure means you do not have to work your way through myriad figures and arrangements, et cetera, so that it will be clear to everybody exactly what that person is getting.

I did hear the interview this morning. It was with two businessmen; one from a FTSE 100 company and the other one from a company that was never listed on the Stock Exchange. If you talk about closing the door, in the short time that we have been in government, we have now opened the door—a door that we feel should have been opened a lot longer ago, but we were not in government then.

[Baroness Sharples]

Does my noble friend agree that small shareholders will take considerable encouragement from this Statement?

[Baroness Wilcox]

My noble friend is right. We are very keen to make sure that shareholders feel that they are getting a fair deal. It is very useful for the very big shareholders to be able to get in and take on the companies for these pay arrangements. I have sat in FTSE 100 company meetings when the room is absolutely full of people who have only got a few shares. Up go all the hands for the vote and we add them up: 1,800 for, 246 against; and then of course we have the other votes that have come in, that are not in the room at the time: 45 million say this, and so on. So yes, the small shareholder will feel that he is in the room, and it is very important that we start to see the dividends grow, if we can, for small shareholders too. We want more shareholders. I thank my noble friend for the question.

Businesses: Debt

Debate between Baroness Sharples and Baroness Wilcox

Thursday 17th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

I thank the noble Lord—and, yes, I have been a dragon, but nowadays I am quite quiet. There is no doubt about it that half the problem is caused by the fact that small and medium-sized businesses are so grateful to get the contracts that they usually do not look at the payment terms and do not make sure how they are going to be paid in the first place. We have the legislation in place—the Labour Party put it in place. We are going to improve on it by using a system covering late payment which, after all, we were the first to put into the European Community. We are now writing it for them to extend it so that it will cover local authorities and any business-to-business transactions that are not being carried out successfully. I hope that that helps.

[Baroness Sharples]

Can my noble friend say whether government departments are paying their bills on time?

[Baroness Wilcox]

I am delighted to be able to say that, after two years, government departments are paying their bills on time. We are paying within five days to the main contractor, which then has to make sure that it pays within 30 days to its sub-contractors. We are watching that very carefully.