To ask Her Majesty's Government, following their consultation, Creating a responsible payment culture: a call for evidence on tackling late payment, published on 4 October, whether they have any plans to introduce penalty measures on companies who make late payments to small businesses; and if so, what are those measures.

The Government is determined to eliminate the continuing scourge of late payments, and understands how important this is, especially for smaller businesses. The Government has a range of measures in place to tackle late payment. It is now a legal requirement for the UK’s largest businesses to report on their payment practices every six months. We have also created the Small Business Commissioner to address small business complaints about late payment and foster a cultural change to encourage responsible payment practices across the UK economy.

In October, BEIS launched a public Call for Evidence to understand the impact of late payment on SMEs and to seek views on how the government could go further to tackle the problem. The call for evidence closed on 29 November with nearly 300 responses. It is right and proper that the Government carefully considers the views of respondents before formally responding.