Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of e-invoicing for small businesses on productivity.

This Government is committed to driving business productivity and economic growth in the UK. Adoption of digital technologies, such as e-invoicing, can significantly improve firm-level productivity by streamlining business processes and reducing administrative work and errors.

However, few small businesses use e-invoicing in the UK. Adoption of e-invoicing by SMEs in the UK is behind countries like France and Germany. This is why, as announced at Budget 2024, DBT and HMRC recently ran a 12 week consultation on promoting e-invoicing in the UK. We will be publishing a summary of responses and updating on next steps in due course.