Small Businesses: Invoice Payments

Lord Jones of Birmingham Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

Is there a statutory right? I shall have to come back to that in order to be sure.

[Lord Jones of Birmingham]

I should be grateful if the Minister dealt with the second part of the question. Legislation was brought in to ensure that the major contractor gets paid quickly. However, although he is holding on to the money, that contractor does not pay a small business—that was the second part of the question—and small businesses across the land get caught with this every day. I should welcome an answer to that.

[Baroness Wilcox]

I agree. Previous legislation brought in the five-day payment. I must say that when I looked through these questions and saw that we were paying within five days, and then saw that some of the contractors further down the line were contracting to pay within 30 days, I asked myself, “Where is that money going for those 25 days?”.