Small Businesses: Late Payments

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord will be pleased to know that interviews have taken place for the Small Business Commissioner and an appointment will be made in the near term—“soon” is, I think, the right word. By the end of the year, when further secondary legislation comes through Parliament, the complaints handling system which the commissioner will operate will be in place as well.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have said that big businesses will begin mandatory reporting of their payment performance—a very important part of this new system—under new regulations from October 2017, via an online service. Yet we discovered, in response to a Written Question, that by the end of July only 208 businesses out of 15,000 had even been invited to join the system. That is 1% signed up so far. What is the current figure?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I do not have that figure. The noble Lord is absolutely right that there is now an obligation on big companies to be transparent in their reporting. That came in in April 2017 and is done on an annual basis, so we will not know until April 2018 how many companies are doing it.