Baroness Sharples
Main Page: Baroness Sharples (Conservative - Life peer)
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.