Bill Esterson
MP for Sefton Central · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, our energy supply and our energy security are not a question of having either oil and gas, or renewables; they are about both. It is a great pity that proper process was not followed in 2022 or 2023. [ Interruption.”
“I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to continuing Britain’s global leadership on climate action, including by going to COP31. I also welcome his focus on breathing space for people and businesses, but, as he said, it will take a lot more than that to deliver the growth and reindustrialisation that he is so committed to.”
“Last week the Committee heard from Claire Dykta, the director of strategy and policy at NESO, who told us: “Operational decisions are taken by authorised, trained personnel only.” Her comments were confirmed by Alastair Martin, the chief strategy officer at Flexitricity, who, in the same session, said: “I do not think the idea that the he…”
“As the Minister has just said, new nuclear is essential for energy security. It is also essential as an alternative career for workers in oil and gas.”
“Paul and Susan Robinson each worked for the Health and Safety Executive for more than 40 years. They have not been able to plan for their retirement since finishing work last year; they have been living off their savings and the small loan that they have had. They are typical of the dozens of constituents who have contacted me.”
“Hudson primary school in my constituency does a brilliant job. It is a family hub, it specialises in support for children with SEND and autism, and it has a nursery, but its building, which is 80 years old, suffers from a high water table that brings damp, mould and structural problems for the building—as does occasional flooding.”
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“It is still unclear whether UK European Patent Attorneys will be able to represent parties in the different Divisions of the UPC after Brexit.” It went on to say: “CIPA has a strong preference for the UK to participate in the UP and UPC system, if a solid legal basis for this can be agreed.” Given the UK’s leading position in patents and patent law, it makes sense to do all we can to maintain our position and to ensure that confidence in our position remains as high as possible. It is important that we avoid taking a step backwards on IP law and losing the potential benefits that the development of single European patent protection will bring. The economic and competitive advantages of such protection are clear enough.”
“What is his view on our potential membership of the patent court after we leave the EU? The CIPA said: “For the UK to continue participating after Brexit, there would need to be a new international agreement with the participating Member States and the UK to provide compatibility with EU law... If the UK does not remain a member of the UPC…there will be a need for further transitional provisions to protect any rights acquired or cases in progress at the time the UK leaves.”
“The court will deal with disputes relating to European patents and help the business that the Bill seeks to assist by removing the threat of unjustified litigation—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) in Committee. Will we still be members of the court after we leave the EU? The court is part of the effort to reduce costs across jurisdictions and make it easier to do business. As we prepare to leave the EU, the last thing we need is additional costs on businesses, so clarity is needed about our membership of the court. The Minister said in Committee that decisions had not yet been taken, so will he provide an update and confirm that he understands just how important it is that we minimise costs across jurisdictions, including those relating to intellectual property rights?”
“Several IP rights that derive from EU regulations will no longer apply to the UK, and the impact of Brexit is far from clear at this stage. As the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys recently commented: “The continued validity of these rights in the UK is uncertain. Transitional agreements may be negotiated to allow time for rights holders to convert these into national rights or to file separate national rights... The government has remained silent on whether or not it intends to implement the new Trade Mark Directive into UK domestic law.” The Minister signalled in Committee the Government’s intention to ratify the unified patent court agreement by the end of April.”
“It is clear that intellectual property is of great importance to the UK economy, so the impact of leaving the European Union on IP and the provisions in the Bill is vital to the economy. It is of great interest to businesses, which value certainty, and it is crucial to potential investors in businesses in the United Kingdom. The Bill will apply to patents, trademarks and designs. The Minister stated in Committee, and in a written answer on 20 October last year, that the European Patent Office was established by international treaty and that our participation in its work will be unaffected by our leaving the EU. The suggestion is that patents will be relatively untouched by Brexit; it is to be hoped that the Minister’s confidence is not misplaced.”
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. Intellectual property makes a significant contribution to the UK economy each year. In 2014, UK firms invested an estimated £133 billion in knowledge assets, compared with £121 billion in tangible assets. As the Intellectual Property Office notes, UK investment in intangible assets that are protected by intellectual property rose from £47 billion in 2000 to £70 billion in 2014, and is estimated to represent 4.2% of total GDP. What is more, the UK system of regulating intellectual property is considered to be one of the best: it was rated No. 3 by business in the 2016 Taylor Wessing global IP index in respect of obtaining, exploiting and enforcing the main types of intellectual property rights.”
“None the less, he has put forward the Government’s view in response to the points that I have raised, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. C lause, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 1 Patents”
“I am glad that the Minister said that he was already having discussions with businesses; that is incredibly important. I urge him to make it clear very publicly, sooner rather than later, exactly what the nature of those discussions are. Businesses are already exceedingly worried about the consequences for intellectual property. I thank him for picking up the points that I made about the relationship between EU patent law and UK patent law. I think that he understands that a great deal of reassurance is needed. I do not agree that we would make life more difficult by having this requirement on Government. In fact, it is a sensible move. I would be surprised and very concerned if we did not see a degree of reporting back during negotiations on these and many other matters.”
“I beg to move amendment 1, page 2, line 15, after “do,” insert “or claims to do,”. This amendment deals with people or companies who hold themselves out as the primary infringer: ie, they claim to be the manufacturer or importer of a product (and therefore can be written to freely) when, in fact, they are not. A definition is provided in amendment 3 .”
“The problem is that smaller manufacturers wanting to challenge the bigger players may not have the expertise or access to expertise needed to comply with the provisions of the Bill. They do not have the staff, time or money to engage legal services or to search for the true identity of the manufacturer. The Minister said in Committee that if action were taken against a rights holder, they would be able to defend themselves in court. Now, that is entirely accurate in legal terms, but the problem is that smaller organisations lack the resources to be able to do so.”
“Amendments 1 and 3 are related to primary infringers and those who claim “to do”. Amendment 1 addresses the concern about the impact on those who claim to make a product and the potential for action to be taken against them. Amendment 3 defines “claims to do”. We are dealing here with communication and threats. As the Bill stands, the onus is on a rights holder not to communicate with a party that claims to be a primary infringer of rights. The example that springs to mind is that of an own-label brand in a supermarket. Under the Bill, a manufacturer who believes that a product contravenes their rights may not communicate with the supermarket unless they are confident that there is no other way of finding out who the manufacturer really is.”
“I agree with the Minister that rights holders ideally should get their communications right, and that is a large part of the thrust of the Bill, but my concern is that the lack of access to legal expertise for smaller businesses could be a real problem.”
“The amendment would not penalise a rights holder for mentioning secondary infringements when such communication was about potential future infringements or similar current infringements. The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys raised the concern that future infringements are excluded as the Bill is now drafted. It seems reasonable to ask an infringer to stop now and in the future, and not to carry out similar infringements, so amendment 2 also deals with the concern of smaller businesses that lack the resources or expertise to ensure that all their communications are strictly compliant with the Bill’s provisions.”
“However, there appears to be a degree of ongoing potential for imbalance in the legislation regarding those who claim to be the manufacturer or the primary infringer, and the Minister’s answers in Committee did not go far enough to guarantee that smaller businesses will be protected. Amendment 2 would address some further concerns of smaller businesses that lack the resources for legal advice and that may fall foul of the Bill’s narrow remit. The amendment addresses the problems where a rights holder challenges not just the primary infringement but secondary acts of infringement. The rights holder may wish to prevent future infringement or to comment on related infringements of a similar nature. The amendment would minimise the fallout from inadvertent infringements.”
“Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) proposed in Committee, how does the Minister propose to ensure that there is a level playing field between protecting the rights holder, especially the smaller rights holder, and preventing unjustified threats, especially where the rights holder is the smaller party? How does he propose to guarantee smaller businesses the ability to operate on a level playing field? To be entirely fair to the Minister, I completely understand that that is the purpose of the whole Bill. My thanks go to the Law Commission for its work in delivering to such an objective. The Bill very much has in mind the need to balance protection and encouragement for innovators, entrepreneurs and investors with the need to ensure a fair market and to prevent unfair and exploitative competition.”
“As my hon. Friend may well have said in Committee. The problem is one of imbalance. Our court system necessarily favours those who have the deepest pockets and the greatest resources, and that does not mean smaller businesses. Will smaller businesses risk winning or losing in court? Will they have the money to defend themselves against an action, or will they think it is worth defending their intellectual property in the first place? It will be for the courts to decide whether a rights holder could have found out who the primary infringer was. For smaller businesses, it could well be a tough choice as to whether they believe the court will back them when they say in court that they did not realise that they should not have contacted the apparent infringer. If not through what I am proposing, and what my hon.”
“I thank the Minister for his responses, and beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Third Reading”
“We appear to have rehearsed, more or less word for word, what happened in Committee. I am disappointed by the Minister’s responses, because he does not appear to have picked up on the concern about the imbalance between larger and smaller businesses—a fundamental element of what we think is missing from the Bill as drafted. I would like greater clarity from him, but perhaps that will come as the Bill is implemented. I urge the Government to consider the impact on smaller businesses. On own label, apparently once the rights holder has found out that an own label product is not made by a supermarket, such action would have to cease or it would be covered by the legislation. That was certainly our intention in the amendment. I hope that our points about the need to protect smaller businesses have been well made.”
“I hope that the Bill will achieve what is intended for it. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.”
“It is critical to the success of the industrial strategy that our intellectual property system functions as well as possible. I hesitate to say that I look forward to how this will develop during the Brexit negotiations, but we certainly need to work extremely hard to make sure that the success of our IP system is retained during those negotiations because of the very close linkage between IP in this country and across the European Union. The Minister mentioned the protection for legal advisers. That is a welcome step forward, as is the clarity and consistency achieved by this Bill. We certainly support its core principles and the overall aims and objectives that have been achieved. I add my thanks to the Law Commission, to those who have worked on the Bill, and to those who served on the Bill Committee.”
“We must do all in our power to ensure that that continues because it is one of the reasons that this country is an attractive place for investment, and that is one of the reasons we must be optimistic about our future, despite the many challenges that we currently face, particularly the uncertainty around Brexit. However, we have raised concerns throughout this process. It is a shame that there was not more in the Bill about alternative dispute resolution. The opportunity to tighten things up in relation to smaller businesses would have been welcome, but that has not happened. We need to reward innovation and entrepreneurs, and to balance that against the creation of a fair market and a successful economy. The Minister mentioned the industrial strategy Green Paper.”
“I join the Minister in saying that the provisions of this Bill are, overall, exactly what is needed to create a level playing field and support and encouragement for innovation and creativity. Those who develop ideas need to have their ideas protected and supported, and bringing together the different elements of intellectual property legislation in the way that this Bill does is very much the right way to go. I mentioned on Report some of the figures and the benefits derived from the fact that the UK has one of the finest IP systems in the world.”
“The Minister may be aware of a recent report in The Lancet stating that as many as 35,000 children are born every year with pre-natal exposure to alcohol, which has a significant impact on schools. What are his plans to ensure that school staff have the necessary training to understand the behavioural and educational needs of those children?”
“I do not think that small businesses are really feeling the love after last week’s Budget. A report by the Federation of Small Businesses entitled “37 problems and tax is one” states that the “proposed National Insurance tax grab on this group is an absolute kick in the teeth, just at a time when we need to create more entrepreneurs, not fewer.” The Minister says that the Government consult the Federation of Small Businesses, but perhaps they might listen to it in future and do what it suggests as well.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. The Minister quite rightly said that it is important that we do all we can to support business in this country, and in particular smaller businesses. That is exactly what improving payment practices should achieve. There is, of course, a big irony here, the day after the Budget, when many people who run small firms and are self-employed are scratching their heads, comparing the Prime Minister’s previous comments about the UK being the best place to start and grow a business with the broken promise on not increasing national insurance contributions.”
“That would serve as a wake-up call for large firms about how much they might find themselves out of pocket because of their behaviour, and as an easy way for suppliers to see how much they could collectively be entitled to, in particular from persistent late payers. We broadly support the aims of the draft regulations. I have posed a number of questions. My sense is that this is the start of the process and not the end, and that there is room for improvement, adaptation and addition to the regulations, not least when the Small Business Commissioner is in post. Will the Minister tell us when that will be? I look forward to her response.”
“Perhaps the Government should consider such an incentive. After all, records have to be kept for seven years for audit purposes—I think it is 10 years for plcs; the Minister can correct me if I am wrong—so that kind of recording would sit naturally alongside existing requirements to record account information. The good thing about the draft regulations is that they start to recognise that, because of the deep imbalance of power in supply chains, we cannot simply leave the problem to suppliers to fix. Obviously, automatically applying interest to late payments would be preferable, but a decent first step would be to require the recording and reporting of interest owed.”
“First, they do not have the internal resources to do so or to take legal action. Secondly, and probably more to the point, such action could damage a major contract, which might represent the majority of the supplier’s revenue. That has always been one of the problems, but the commercial reality is that a supplier challenging its big customers runs the risk of losing them for future business. That is one of the key challenges in dealing with the problem. The Government response, quoting business submissions to the consultation, drives that point home. Businesses do not record such matters and they do not have the software to manage interest on late payments, because the threat of a small supplier slapping interest on their late payments is so remote that there is no incentive for them to do so.”
“We believe that businesses should focus their efforts on not incurring interest by paying on time, rather than calculating potential interest. This will be kept under review. We will also take into account the lessons that the introduction of reporting on interest liable in the public sector can teach us, once it has been introduced in April 2017.” Perhaps the Minister will give us some more information on what is meant by “kept under review”. The business response to the consultation was, “We don’t record that”, but that is a pretty poor excuse. Previously we have made the case, including during the Committee stage of what became the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, that interest should be applied automatically to late payments, because it is too onerous for small businesses to go after much bigger clients themselves.”
“Feedback suggested that most businesses do not routinely record how much late payment interest they may be liable for, and would therefore require costly upgrades to software in order to report the total liability. Linked to this is the fact that a claim for interest under the Late Payment Act may be brought up to six years later. Businesses felt that requiring reporting to cover the previous six years would be particularly difficult because the data may not have been recorded in a way that allowed extraction. The costs associated could be substantial and could result in a figure that would be difficult for users of the data to interpret, as it would cover a different time period to other metrics which are limited to the six month reporting period.”
“I would be surprised if deductions for paying on time were considered to be so standard as to be not worth recording, but we can be reasonably certain that where there is wooliness, some of those most likely to cut corners will do just that. If we are going down the route of closing off loopholes, as the stipulation on deductions for remaining on a supplier’s list suggests, we ought to go the full way and explicitly include deductions that allow companies to pay less for paying early. The draft regulations were going to include a requirement to report on interest owed for late payments. However, that requirement has been dropped. The Government response to the consultation says: “Several issues emerged through further engagement with businesses.”
“That is clearly a step forward, but there is another problem, which has not been addressed in these regulations, namely the ability of companies to award themselves a discount for early payment. That has been excluded from the regulations, and I will come on to what the Government response to the consultation said on that point. The courts have a fairly broad take on what standard payment terms are, and obviously they will be the terms used in the vast majority of contracts. It would be for the company to prove in dispute that tweaks such as discounts are standard and known to all their contracting partners.”
“How the web-based service is run will be crucial, so can she say more about how it will work? If it works properly, we could see a step change in the way that smaller firms are treated by their larger customers. This is not just fine detail. The danger, as we have seen, is that attempted actions on late payment amount to just moral grandstanding, rather than creating effective tools to tackle this scourge, which, as the Minister and I have both said, delays payments amounting to £26 billion at any one time. The regulations require companies to provide a statement on whether their payment practices and policies allow them to deduct money from payments as a charge to a supplier to remain on the qualifying company’s list of suppliers or potential suppliers.”
“The reports will be published, to use the Minister’s words, on a Government web-based service, and they are due to be published within 30 days after the last day of the reporting period, which I assume means the tax-reporting period. How will simply saying, “It will be published online,” help the smaller companies, which need to understand their potential customers’ payment practices before deciding whether to contract with them? The web-based service needs to be easily searchable. It needs to show how different companies compare with each other and to show what the industry standard is. For small businesses to benefit from the regulations and for us to create the kind of balance between large and small firms that the Minister rightly referred to, the system needs to operate effectively.”
“How will the regulations help us to move from the 378 that have signed up to the prompt payment code to all 7,000 carrying out the practices in the regulations, which is what we all want to see? Is the duty to change what we need? While we are supportive of any measures to tackle late payment, in particular requiring larger firms to lay out their payment practices, all this prompts the question whether we are throwing another policy at a problem that has persistently withstood the “moral encouragement” approach. The duty in the regulations has the potential to do a lot more than that, but only if specific actions are taken.”
“Although the total number of signatories is 1,936, according to the Government website, very few of them are medium-sized or large private sector firms. When NHS trusts, councils, Government Departments and so on are taken out, there are just 184 signatories with a turnover of more than £500 million a year, a further 84 with a turnover of between £100 million and £500 million year, and 110 with a turnover of between £25 million and £100 million. That means that only 378 firms with a turnover of more than £25 million have signed up to the prompt payment code. According to figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, there are 7,000 large firms in the United Kingdom.”
“That is because different organisations use different data and baselines. The 2011 EU directive on combating late payment in commercial transactions already states that the period for payment in a business-to-business contract should never exceed 60 calendar days—I said I would come back to that point. In these regulations, the Government are asking businesses and partnerships to report what percentage of their payments are made after 60 days. Is it not inconsistent merely to ask businesses about their payment practice after 60 days when the legal framework already says it is illegal to go beyond that 60-day period? It does not sound like a very good sign to me. Another example of where more needs to be done is the prompt payment code.”
“However, none of those changes, whether voluntary or on a statutory footing, changed the tide on late payments. Will the measures that are being finalised today change the situation? In 1993, the Forum of Private Business estimated that 89% of small and medium-sized businesses were paid late. On average, they were paid 51 days after the due date. Twenty three years later, the Federation of Small Business, in “Time to Act: the economic impact of poor payment practice”, reported that 61% of small businesses are paid late, with an average payment delay of six weeks. Moreover, in 2016 the Federation of Small Business found that 30% of payments are typically late. That number was up from 2011, when it was only 28%. Hon. Members who are paying attention will have noticed that some of those figures say slightly different things.”
“The latest initiative is to require large firms to disclose their payment practice and performance. Conservative Governments in the 1990s opted for what was described as moral encouragement—naming and shaming—and shied away from more concrete steps, such as statutory rights to interest on unpaid bills. In the 1990s, businesses were able to claim interest only if a term to that effect was included in the contract or if the courts decided to award interest in their favour in the course of the recovery proceedings. When the Labour Government came to power in 1997, they introduced the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 to give companies legal remedies beyond those of the normal commercial courts. EU legislation followed that approach and extended creditors’ rights further.”
“There will also be statements about the proportion of payments made in the reporting period that were made within the timeframes of one to 30 days late, 31 to 60 days late and more than 60 days late. I will come back to the point about more than 60 days, as there is a potential inconsistency with existing regulations. Another reporting requirement is the average number of days taken to make payments, which is calculated by adding the number of days it took to make all the relevant payments and dividing it by the number of payments. Successive Governments have tried and failed to tackle the problem. Various approaches have been tried, from praising good payment practices, creating intra-industry codes, setting up a Small Business Commissioner and introducing the innovation of a right to interest on late-paid bills.”
“How will the reporting be policed? Without proper teeth, who is to say whether the reporting by companies is accurate? Will it be policed through the audit process, and how detailed will that policing be? The regulations also require statements about payment practices and policies, including the availability of electronic invoicing, supply chain finance and whether businesses are members of a payment code of conduct—the Minister mentioned the prompt payment code, which I shall return to later—and statistics about performance for each reporting period, including the proportion of payments due in the reporting period that were not paid within the contractual payment period. Again, what is the mechanism for ascertaining whether that is happening?”
“What happens if a firm falls below or goes above the threshold of 250 employees during the reporting period? Will that firm have to report on their payment practices for the whole or part of the period? The regulations mean that qualifying companies and partnerships will have to report descriptions of their standard payment terms and of their dispute resolution process, where there is a payment issue with a supplier. What will happen in the event of some of the sharp practices that have led us to need these regulations—for example, where a company queries an invoice on the last day before payment is due and then the clock starts to run again, which is a well-known tactic used by some larger companies? What will the impact of such challenges be? How will the regulations affect the reporting in that kind of example?”
“The Government also need to push forward with the corporate governance Green Paper, which has been discussed, ensuring that small business suppliers are represented at board level in large firms. That is a crucial element in making sure that the kind of level playing field hinted at can be achieved. Who and what do the regulations affect? Companies and partnerships fall within scope of the two sets of regulations if they are medium-sized or above, which means having more than 250 employees. Contracts fall within scope if they are for goods, services or intangible assets—although I think I am right in saying that they do not include financial services—and if they are covered by the law of any part of the United Kingdom, unless they are specifically excluded from that by both parties.”
“Secondly, we need the published reports to be accessible and easily searchable, which would follow through on the “name and shame” element behind the regulations, as well as allowing small businesses to review potential clients’ payment practices. We also want more robust, wide-ranging action on late payments that goes far beyond the encouragement or very veiled threats to late-paying large firms that have typified the approach of Conservative Governments —not just this one, but in previous years. That includes having the right person appointed to the role of Small Business Commissioner, which the Minister mentioned—someone with a background in small business and an expertise in the supplier side of business contracts.”
“That is why we broadly support the proposals and will not oppose the regulations. There has been a delay in bringing forward the regulations, but I am glad they are now here. This is not a silver bullet; it is one of a number of tools needed to change a UK business culture where it has been seen as acceptable to pay small firms late. There has been systematic poor practice in the day-to-day business approach of some larger firms, which use it for their own credit management and to their own benefit, to the detriment of their smaller suppliers. We need two things to address the imbalance of power in supply chains. First, the regulations must be robustly enforced, with substantial fines and consistent sanctions against businesses that pay late and/or fail to report fully.”
“The Conservatives are in government. It is a shame that they promised in their manifesto not to put up national insurance contributions and then went and did exactly that. We have better news today. As the Minister rightly said, according to the Bacs report, £26 billion is owed in late payments. She mentioned the importance of attacking that, which the regulations will contribute to. She also mentioned the potential cost to business of the regulations of £17.7 million. The latest Bacs report cited a figure of £2.5 billion a year for the cost to business of late payments, and said that 50,000 business deaths will result if we do not do something about it. She quite rightly said that the investment of £17.7 million will reap an extremely positive return to the UK economy and businesses.”
“Is that an example, or are there other examples, of where the changes in regulations will enable action to be taken against directors to ensure that they act in the way that most people would expect them to? Do the terms “fraudulent or wrongful trading” cover those sorts of examples? Can we be given some assurance that the changes, which the Opposition broadly welcomed when the original legislation was passed, have started to create the intended improvements and have been helpful in supporting creditors and ensuring that directors take a more responsible attitude to business? With those remarks and questions, I am happy to say that we broadly support the changes that have been introduced. We were pleased that the Government introduced them at the time. Having put our concerns on record, I look forward to the answers.”
“Similarly, there is the opportunity for administrators to take action against directors for fraudulent or wrongful trading. Will the Minister give us examples of where the provisions that have already been approved outside financial services have been applied? That will indicate whether there will be successful additional action when they apply to financial services. I mentioned two high-profile cases, but there are a number of others. There is great concern inside and outside Parliament about the actions of some directors. Philip Green is a notable example; we are all familiar with his having agreed a sum of £363 million out of a £571 million pension shortfall.”
“The statutory instrument includes measures to support unsecured creditors, but may I ask about the impact on staff? Staff are ring-fenced in insolvency proceedings and have been for some time, but there is a limit to how much money is recovered for redundancy payments during insolvencies. We have seen that in high-profile examples, such as BHS and Comet. I had a Comet store in my constituency, so I know how much money staff members were still owed after the Government-backed scheme was exhausted. Will the changes to the support for unsecured creditors make any difference in helping staff to recover the excess amounts not covered by the Government schemes, or is this just a more general set of changes for unsecured creditors?”
“Opposition Members said of the section: “This clause would allow the office holder to assign not only the right of action but the proceeds of such action. By ensuring that the purchaser would stand to gain fully from potential benefits arising from the action, alongside bearing all the risk and cost of pursuing the claim, the Government are assuming that a clear incentive will be created to pursue more wrongdoers. The clause may well deliver in that regard. However, there may be other, unintended consequences.” –– [ Official Report, Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2014; c. 445.] I would be grateful if the Minister gave us examples of how the section has been implemented thus far to help us understand its extension to financial services.”