Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the hon. Member for his question. He is absolutely right to bring up this matter. It is one of the concerns that has been raised most frequently with me since taking on this role. We are tackling the culture of late payments with measures including the Payment Practices Reporting, the Small Business Commissioner and the Prompt Payment Code, but I am determined to see how much further we can go to be effective in this area.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

T8. I recently met my constituent, Puneet Bhalla, who is the founder and chief executive of Maxim World, a very successful small exporter of hotel goods across the world. He told me of some of the challenges that small and medium-sized exporters are facing with post-Brexit trade arrangements. Can my hon. Friend tell me what plans there are to involve SMEs in the review of EU retained law?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

It is great to hear that my hon. Friend’s constituent is looking to export right across the world, and we are determined to make it easier to do so through trade deals outside the European Union. Ministers and officials from across BEIS regularly engage with SMEs on a wide range of issues and will continue to do so as the retained EU law programme proceeds.