Commercial Debt: Late Payments

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I cannot answer for part of what the noble Baroness says, but, basically, the whole issue is for companies to treat their suppliers in a way that cuts down late payments. However, the noble Baroness is quite right to say that we are not going to impose sanctions as she described.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Will the Minister congratulate the Groceries Code Adjudicator on this her first decision? Will he insist that a proportion of the fine be used to increase her resources to enable her to do more such investigations? Will she be allowed to take own-initiative investigations, off her own bat, rather than wait for a referral from small producers that simply are too timid to do so?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My noble friend is quite right that support has to be given to small producers and SMEs in this instance. As far as more powers for the adjudicator are concerned, I feel that those will be part of the performance review. However, if there is anything more that I can add to that, I will write to my noble friend.