Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to help tackle late payments to small and medium-sized businesses.

Last month we announced a package of new measures to tackle late payments and long payment terms for small businesses and the self-employed.

We will legislate in this parliamentary session to require that large companies include payment performance in their annual reports, driving up transparency on how they pay their suppliers.

We will also be consulting on potential primary legislation measures and launching a new Fair Payment Code that rewards companies who pay their suppliers quickly and fairly.