Kevin Brennan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what proportion of UK firms was owed money for late payments in each of the last ten years.

Anna Soubry

The Department does not hold the information required to make an estimate of proportion of UK firms owed money for late payments in each of the last ten years. As late payment affects so many different types of business in different ways, no single survey gives a full picture of the impact of late payment on businesses. The three sources that we look to as an indicator of late payment are the SME finance monitor, the regular BACs survey and Experian’s late payment index. BACS data shows that small and medium businesses were owed a total of £26.8 billion as at June 2015, and the average small business is waiting for £31,900 in overdue payments.

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 public and private sectors. 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.