Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the financial liability of local authorities associated with late payments of suppliers' invoices which will result from the transposition of the European Union directive on late payments.

This information is not held centrally. However, in implementing Lord Young’s recommendations to open up public sector procurement to SMEs, increase transparency and simplify the government market, we are bringing in new measures so that from 2015 all public bodies will be required to publish the interest they have paid due to late payments. From 2016-17 they will have to calculate their liabilities and publish them annually.