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446224

registered interest
date	20/01/2016
answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept id	26
answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
hansard heading	Small Businesses: Billing
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department is taking to encourage larger companies to make payments to small and medium-sized enterprises on time.
tabling member constituency	Strangford
tabling member printed	Jim Shannon
uin	23500
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 28/01/2016 answer text <p><strong></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><br /><p>The Government recognises that late payment remains an important issue for small businesses in the UK and is taking significant steps to assist small businesses to recover late payment debts. This is part of a package of measures to tackle late payment. We have also legislated for new transparency measures in the private sector.</p><br /><p>The Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 legislated for a new reporting requirement on the UK’s largest companies and Regulations will be introduced this year which will compel larger companies to report on payment practices and performance. This information will be published on a six-monthly basis and will be made publicly available.</p><br /><p>Through the Enterprise Bill, currently before Parliament, we will legislate to establish a Small Business Commissioner to give general advice and to help small businesses resolve disputes relating to payment matters with larger businesses.</p><br /><p>Tackling late payment is about creating a responsible payment culture where larger companies recognise the benefit of having a sustainable and robust supply chain, and smaller businesses feel able to challenge poor behaviour. Once implemented, the Government is confident that these measures will lead to significant changes in the UK’s payment culture.</p><br /><p><strong></strong></p> answering member constituency Broxtowe answering member printed Anna Soubry question first answered 28/01/2016 17:36:16 answering member 3938 label Biography information for Anna Soubry
tabling member	4131 label Biography information for Jim Shannon

178791

registered interest
date	10/02/2015
answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept id	26
answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
hansard heading	Small Businesses: Billing
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department has taken to enforce prompt payments to small and medium-sized enterprises by large companies.
tabling member constituency	Strangford
tabling member printed	Jim Shannon
uin	224107
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/02/2015 answer text <p>The Government is taking forward a suite of measures to tackle prompt payment.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Through the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, currently before Parliament, we will introduce measures to improve transparency on payment practices and policies. Increased transparency, through a tough and transparent new reporting requirement on the UK’s largest companies, will help take significant steps to addressing the current imbalance in economic power between small and large contracting parties. Our consultation on draft secondary regulations to underpin these measures closed on 2 February. We will publish a summary of responses shortly.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Government is currently seeking views on how to best give representative bodies wider powers to be able to challenge grossly unfair payment practices on behalf of members. The discussion paper is available online and is open until 9 March.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Government is also working to strengthen the impact of the Prompt Payment Code. We are currently considering proposals, including introducing a maximum payment term for Code signatories, more rigorous monitoring of signatory behaviour, and the enforcement of tougher sanctions on bad payers. We will announce our proposals in Spring.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>These measures will drive forward a shift in payment culture that will make it unacceptable for large companies in positions of extreme bargaining imbalances to exploit smaller suppliers.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><strong> </strong></p><p> </p> answering member constituency West Suffolk answering member printed Matthew Hancock question first answered 23/02/2015 13:55:31 answering member 4070 label Biography information for Matt Hancock
tabling member	4131 label Biography information for Jim Shannon