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UK PARLIAMENT · SITTING

Bill Esterson

MP for Sefton Central · Labour · United Kingdom

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

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.

JACKDAW AND ROSEBANK OIL AND GAS FIELDS · 2026-09-03 · READ IN HANSARD

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.

DIRECTION OF GOVERNMENT · 2026-09-01 · READ IN HANSARD

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…

NATIONAL ENERGY SYSTEM OPERATOR: BLACKOUT RISK · 2026-07-15 · READ IN HANSARD

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.

NUCLEAR ENERGY SITES: SCOTLAND · 2026-07-07 · READ IN HANSARD

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.

CIVIL SERVICE PENSIONS · 2026-07-06 · READ IN HANSARD

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.

SCHOOL REBUILDING PROGRAMME: SEFTON · 2026-06-22 · READ IN HANSARD

The complete record

Every one of 4,882 lines we hold for Bill Esterson, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 68 of 98.

  1. Not every small business has a lawyer or accountant who is able to offer the full range of services. Many small businesses will need the office of the commissioner—just as an advice service was available under the previous Labour Government for businesses that had nowhere else to go—to provide advice, support, encouragement and dispute resolution directly, rather than just signposting elsewhere. If the Minister expects the small business commissioner to signpost to those excellent organisations, she will need to ensure they can cope, because they might face a deluge of additional work. They have raised that concern with me, and no doubt also with the Minister.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  2. I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, with which I agree. We will deal with that point in more detail in the next set of amendments, although it does have an impact on the appointment and dismissal process, as she rightly points out. We want the commissioner to be effective. We want him or her to be able to help with late payments and to look at what other functions might make good additions as the office evolves, and that includes the point made by the hon. Lady. The Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors and the British Chambers of Commerce often offer good advice, legal services and access to discounted business products such as insurance, and they are also good at helping businesses with disputes, but they are member organisations.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  3. The Minister said that the small business commissioner needs to command the respect of large and small businesses alike. I completely agree but there is a concern among the representative organisations that the lack of independence that comes from being an effective part of the Department will make it difficult for the commissioner to command that respect, particularly the respect of the small business community. Large business is effective at lobbying and has effective relationships with the Government, and that is much harder for individual small businesses and for small businesses collectively.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  4. I understand why the Government have gone down that route, although it is a shame that the commissioner has not been set up to draw on some of the successful experiences as well as the remits of the arrangements in America and Australia. The Minister said that the commissioner would not—I am not sure whether she said “could not”, so I will assume that she said “would not”—be abolished at will. However, the role can be abolished by affirmative resolution of both Houses and, in Parliament, that is pretty close when one party has an overall majority in the Commons. It is unlikely that the Lords would object. I take on board the point that if it were proved that the commissioner was not up to the job, the commissioner would be removed, but there is a difference between that and abolishing the post.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  5. Thank you, Sir David. I apologise for omitting your title earlier. I thank the Minister for her brief response, but I do not think that she has really answered the questions we posed. I am glad that there is broad agreement about the value to the economy of small businesses, and I reiterate that our approach to part 1 of the Bill is about trying to strengthen the post as much as possible so that businesses and the wider economy really can benefit from it. I understand why the post has been set up to look at late payments, rather than at some of the wider issues, as the problem of late payments has existed for more years than many of us will remember.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  6. That is right. We are trying to achieve a level playing field. This is not about preferring small business over large, it is about making sure that the relationship is equitable. In the same way, the Groceries Code Adjudicator was set up to make sure that the behaviour of some of the large supermarkets was not excessive and their relationship with their suppliers was fair and equitable. I did not get the sense of an answer or a justification of why this should not be a Crown appointment. I thought the Minister’s argument could equally have reached the conclusion that it should have been a Crown appointment. For that reason, I would like to test the will of the Committee and press the amendment to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  7. I beg to move amendment 37, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, leave out paragraph (b) and insert— “(b) to consider complaints from small businesses relating to matters in connection with the supply of goods and services to— (i) larger businesses and (ii) public authorities and to make recommendations.” This amendment would widen the consideration of complaints function to cover complaints from small businesses relating to matters in connection with the supply of goods and services to larger businesses and to public authorities (as defined in clause 13).

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  8. EU directive 2011/7 on combatting late payment and commercial transactions makes payments within 30 days mandatory for public authorities, with administration fees and interest applied to late payments, but there is no evidence of public authorities automatically adding these penalties when invoices are paid late. More has to be done, and the small business commissioner should be championing small businesses’ rights with public authorities, as well as with larger companies. It is what small businesses will expect when they see the phrase small business commissioner, and when they approach that office.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  9. I apologise. My notes are slightly out of order. Some might say that there is much about me that is out of order, but I leave that to others to decide. Amendments 37 and 45 relate to the public sector, which we have already touched on once or twice. While late payment in the public sector is less prevalent than in the private sector, with £187 billion spent annually on goods and services by the public sector, any level of late payment is damaging to the economy and to small business. Government Departments’ target to pay 80% of invoices within five working days might look good on the surface, but it tends to mask a culture of late payment to small and medium businesses, which fare far worse than large companies in dealing with the Government.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  10. Central Government spend £40 billion a year on goods and services, of which about £4.5 billion is spent directly with SMEs. An additional £4 billion is spent with SMEs indirectly where SMEs are subcontractors to Government contracts. The wider public sector—for example, local authorities and NHS trusts—spends £147 billion a year on goods and services. Government Departments have a target to pay 80% of undisputed invoices within five working days and report good performance against those targets, but the NAO study calls into question the idea that Departments are paying their suppliers promptly.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  11. It consisted of responses from nearly 9,000 FSB members and confirmed that although larger companies are the worst offenders with late payments, late payment in the public sector is still a big issue. According to the survey, 27% of Government agencies paid SMEs late and 29% of SME invoices from the UK central Government were paid late, so central Government were slightly worse than local. A more up-to-date assessment of late payment by central Government is found in the National Audit Office’s paper “Paying Government suppliers on time” from January 2015. The study covered all central Government Departments but looked in detail at the payment practice of the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Cabinet Office.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  12. My hon. Friend is right. I was a councillor at the time as well and remember the investments in certain Icelandic banks. More than a few local authorities were caught badly as a result. Her point is well made. On the benefits to larger firms—and we will deal with this when we discuss cash retentions in the construction sector—there is evidence of the use of moneys due, particularly to smaller firms, to help the cash flow of the larger firm. That is potentially true in the public sector, as my hon. Friend said. Dealing with that is one reason to explore bringing the public sector within the remit of the small business commissioner. The last Federation of Small Businesses members’ survey assessing late payments by the public versus the private sector was conducted in 2012.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  13. My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. The public sector is an incredibly important part of the economy in many parts of the country. We have a collective responsibility, whether in Parliament or elsewhere, to get this right and ensure that the public sector is doing its bit. That is really important.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  14. Of course we don’t have to keep quiet, avoiding admin fees and interest on invoices—just like they don’t have to use us again. It’s a bad situation when you’re lurching from one loan to the next because you aren’t getting the money you’re owed. But whether it’s the public or private sector it’s the same point—you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” The Bill sets up the small business commissioner only to address complaints or disputes against large businesses. It currently excludes complaints against public sector organisations. Many small businesses find trading with the public sector very difficult, and we have seen some of the reasons why.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  15. One start-up company had a contract with a public authority. The company was paid 30 days after the five-day terms laid out in the invoice. It had paid up front for the supplies needed to carry out the work, so it was left in a precarious financial position within six months of starting up. It could have made use of the rights available to it within existing legislation—a £70 administration fee and interest on the contract value. However, when the debtor did not automatically add the interest and fee, the company chose not to pursue it. It told me: “As a start-up, repeat business with the public sector is no different to repeat business with the private sector: we rely on both to get by, and we know that they have more options than we do about who to do business with.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  16. Although the user guide is clear, the automatic nature of the obligation is less clear when we review the specific statements in both the EU directive on late payment and the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations 2013. Essentially, without automatic penalties, the interest and admin fees imposed for late payments still require SMEs to stick their head above the parapet and challenge their public sector customers. As I am sure all hon. Members are aware, that is a real problem. Once businesses start to challenge their own customers, they risk losing their custom later on, which is a real dilemma. It is the same dilemma that small businesses face with large suppliers, and it happens in the public sector as well. It is about businesses being asked to sour relations with their own customers. I have an example from my own constituency.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  17. There is an admin fee of £40, £70 or £100, depending on whether the invoice is under £1,000, under £10,000 or over £10,000. That is a step in the right direction. However, the Local Government Association released a paper in 2014 saying that there is no evidence of any public authorities automatically adding the penalties when invoices are paid late. The Institute of Credit Management has said it is not aware that interest is automatically being paid. The House of Commons Library has also confirmed that it has not seen evidence of public authorities automatically adding the penalties—so the question is, how is this going to happen unless there is automatic addition of interest and penalties?

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  18. It is aimed at making pursuing payment a simpler process across the European Union and making payment on time the norm. One point that occurs to me from my experience of invoicing is that sometimes the date on which an invoice is received is a matter of great debate, because accounting departments may say that they have not received an invoice for many days, if not weeks. It will be interesting to see how that is to be defined; there are ways around the problem using electronic invoicing or recorded postal delivery, or suchlike, but most SME invoicing does not happen in those ways. Under the directive, the failure of public authorities to pay within 30 days leads to interest of 8% being added from day one of late payment, subject to agreement on when the late payment is recognised.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  19. None of the four Departments that the NAO looked at measures its performance in paying SMEs, which typically use paper invoices. Looking at the average payment time for paper invoices shows that the time taken by the four Departments to hit the 80% payment target jumps from five days to between three and seven weeks—a very different picture. The Asset Based Finance Association conducted research in 2014 that showed that the average wait for payment is still in excess of 40 days for some local authorities, and that the average wait for payment from local authorities is virtually unchanged over the past six years, from 17.7 days then to 17.3 days more recently. EU directive 2011/7 makes make it mandatory for all public authorities to settle invoices in a maximum of 30 days from receipt.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  20. I was talking about the four Departments that the National Audit Office looked at in detail: the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Cabinet Office. The National Audit Office shows that those Departments’ apparently good payment record is skewed by a high volume of low-value e-transactions with a few large suppliers. Those payments are dominated by large companies, such as the ones the Departments use to book train tickets and order office supplies. Basically, Departments can get close to hitting their payment performance targets just by using their procurement cards and by paying their e-invoices from a few large companies straightaway. If we dig past the misleading top line and look past the e-invoices from large companies, we see a different picture.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  21. Yes, and those figures are higher than in the 2012 Federation of Small Businesses survey. The figures demonstrate that, as I touched on earlier, the smallest firms that lack the ability to pursue cases are the most vulnerable to the problem of late payment, wherever it comes from. Certainly in the case of the public sector, we have a duty and a responsibility to ensure that payment is on time and to look after the smallest firms in particular and business in general. That is an important part of what the Government should be doing to encourage and generate our enterprise culture—this is the Enterprise Bill—and to ensure that the economy is successful through the support that the public sector can give to business.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  22. Yes, that is right. We are trying to create an opportunity for the small business commissioner to make sure that payment practices are carried out correctly in the public sector. As my hon. Friend says, there is a massive opportunity here to make sure that all public authorities are doing their bit to support the economy. The money could be out in the economy, going through small businesses that will then reuse it elsewhere. We get the benefits and the economic growth that comes from that.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  23. The obvious answer is that the difficulties that small businesses face are such that the existing arrangements are not sufficient, just as the existing arrangements are not sufficient in relation to late payment and other relationships between large and small firms in the private sector.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  24. Whether a small business has difficulty being paid, progressing with tenders or developing its business with large customers, many of the same difficulties of anonymous organisations present themselves. The idea of a one-stop shop seems to make a lot of sense, and this group of amendments is an attempt to give teeth to the commissioner from the outset and not to limit his or her remit. In the Lords, the Government said they did not want to include the public sector because there are other arrangements for complaints against the public sector, and for mediation.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  25. I know that that is a complaint often made by small firms: there seems to be an automatic decision to choose the larger firm when it comes to contracting. If we want the small business commissioner to be as effective as possible, we should enable and, indeed, encourage him or her to explore and address the challenges where they lie and where small business wants support and advice. It makes sense for small businesses to have one place to go to for help, no matter the cause of complaint. If what the Government want the small business commissioner to address late payment as a priority, it makes sense for the commissioner to address late payment, not just some late payment.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  26. In fact, the issues of late payment and retentions, contracting, procurement and tendering are the same whether the business being contracted for is with the public or the private sector. The imbalance in the relationship between large and small is the same in both sectors, and the need for a level playing field is the same. Public sector organisations that buy from the private sector should treat large and small businesses equally, yet many of the complaints from small businesses suggest that large firms have the advantage in tendering and other contractual matters in their relationships with both public and private sectors. Certainly my own experience in business was that it was almost impossible, as a small business, to get anywhere in tendering or even in getting past the pre-qualifying questionnaire.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  27. I thank my hon. Friend for that point: we might almost think that the Government had designed it so that that would be the consequence. Many small businesses find trading with the public sector very different, because of late payment and retentions in the construction sector, and because of the arrangements for contracting, procurement and tendering. Given that the public sector is such a large part of the trade of small firms and one of their biggest markets, it seems odd that the small business commissioner is not going to be constituted in a way that will allow support to be provided when the public sector is involved. That is the point my hon. Friend made.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  28. In Australia, if a large firm refuses to take part in mediation with the small business commissioner, that can be taken into account when costs are being considered during court action. The Australian small business commissioner has teeth—very sharp ones—and it is a great shame that ours appears to be lacking in bite. The small business commissioner’s ability to direct small businesses to another organisation that may be able to help clearly has value, but in some cases the commissioner may well be best placed to help and, as in Australia, may be more effective in a wider sense. The purpose of the amendments, which relate to the public sector, is to give a wider sense of how we can build on the commissioner’s initial role of tackling late payments.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  29. 733] He also made the point that an effective small business commissioner should be expected to help the wider business environment and the economy as a whole, as his or her role is to ensure fairness, not to see one party succeed at the expense of another. The Lords were also concerned that a mediation role was to be excluded from the function of the small business commissioner. In Australia, the ability to resolve disputes through mediation and direct involvement has been one of the reasons for the success of the office across the country and in a number of different states. Mediation has meant the commissioner working with large businesses as well as small and has enabled the small business commissioner to build profile, credibility and influence.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  30. Lord Mendelsohn made the point that the small business commissioner could look at so much more, including “access to information and education; advocacy to government; investigation of small business complaints and business behaviour; facilitating the resolution of disputes, including and especially through mediation; influencing small business-conscious government and other key stakeholders, including regulators, media and the business community; and ensuring that such a commissioner would operate with an attitude of being concerned with substance rather than technicality and a dedication to resolving disputes by encouraging commercially realistic attitudes”. —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 25 November 2015; Vol. 767, c.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  31. It is clear from the successful work of Mark Brennan that there is an opportunity for our small business commissioner to provide information and work towards the right kind of regulation that ensures a fair economy. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) raised concern about the narrow remit of the small business commissioner, and I agree with him that it lacks teeth. There is an opportunity for the commissioner to do much more than look at 500 late payments a year when there are 5 million small businesses. That sounds like just scratching the surface.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  32. The advice from Australia, from the excellent Mark Brennan, has been that having late payments as the commissioner’s main focus might limit the role, because late payment is about a lot more than the immediate issue of whether a particular invoice is late. The commissioner could and should be able to do a lot more, and should have an important role in improving the wider business environment for small business and the economy as a whole. Better information is an important part of having a successful economy, with low barriers to entry, that encourages and supports the growth of businesses or all ages and sizes. Having the appropriate regulations to ensure fair competition is another important element.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  33. The creation of the small business commissioner is an opportunity to put some balance back, but only if it is done in the right way. That means not restricting where the small business commissioner investigates. It should be able to look at other elements of the business relationship, including commissioning, procurement and operations, and its remit should include the public sector and other small businesses. The Government want the small business commissioner to concentrate on late payments. Given the scale of the problem, we do not object to that, although it is not the way in which the Australian commissioners have been set up.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  34. The point was also made in the Lords that if small businesses want help with late payments or anything else and are told that the Government have set up a wonderful new service, but are then told that the small business commissioner is not allowed to help with their particular problem, they will feel let down by the Government. It will reinforce the impression that the Government are not really interested in helping; that they are not really on their side; that they stand up for some groups, but not others; that they are there for the Googles and tax havens of this world but not for small businesses. That impression already exists through measures such as the introduction of quarterly filing of tax returns, the scrapping of the growth fund and business accelerator and the movement from grants to loans for small businesses.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  35. Members will know, payment in business is due only if a contract has been properly agreed and completed to the satisfaction of both parties. There are legal definitions of what constitutes the completion of a contract, which go beyond my limited knowledge of the law. The argument was made in the Lords that late payment is often the result of disagreement about contract matters and about whether a product or service has been delivered as agreed. As a result, it is difficult to see how the small business commissioner will be able to consider late payment in isolation.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  36. The amendment also address the fact that most small business trade is with other small businesses; again, larger firms and the public sector are often somewhere in the supply chain. I believe that such disputes are also excluded from the small business commissioner’s remit, unless the Minister tells us otherwise. There is a wider business environment, and for the small business commissioner to deliver, it needs to be able to do so regardless of the nature of the parties involved. During the debate in the other place, I noticed that there was discussion of how late payment could not be considered in isolation. It was suggested that to address late payment effectively, the small business commissioner would also have to consider commissioning and operations. As hon.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  37. If a small business is not paid by a larger customer, which in turn is struggling because of delays by a public sector organisation, I can see how the small business might approach the small business commissioner for help but be told that the complaint is beyond the scope of the small business commissioner due to the involvement of the public sector. The simple answer to that and other disputes with the public sector is for the small business commissioner to be able to intervene in all cases brought to him or her by small businesses. As the Minister did not respond earlier to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield about supply chains involving the public sector, perhaps she will do so this time.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  38. The adjudicator has raised concerns about suppliers’ reluctance to complain and difficulties in ensuring confidentiality in the complaints process. We will move amendments on those points later in our discussions. Hopefully, we can learn from the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure that the small business commissioner is as effective as possible, as early as possible. On the relationship between small businesses and the public sector, there are sometimes supply chain situations in which a small business supplies goods to a private sector customer, who in turn contracts with the public sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield made that point earlier. Construction is a good example; we will come to the issue of cash retentions in the construction industry numerous times in our deliberations.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  39. There is also a long-standing problem in how many small businesses are treated by some public sector organisations, and the creation of the small business commissioner is an opportunity to address problems for small businesses, regardless of where those problems originate. That includes working with the Groceries Code Adjudicator. One learning point from the Groceries Code Adjudicator, by the way, is that she has spent much of her time explaining to suppliers and others what her role and remit are, leaving her much less time to devote to addressing the concerns of the industry, which was why the office was set up in the first place. Maybe that is one reason why, after two years, she has held only one investigation, welcome though that investigation of Tesco is. We should take that experience on board.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  40. Of course, that is much harder to do if the commissioner is part of the Department and owes his survival in post to the Secretary of State. The Groceries Code Adjudicator was set up, albeit on a limited scale, and we could learn much from that experience when considering how best to set up the small business commissioner. When I say “a limited scale”, I mean that a three-day-a-week adjudicator with five members of staff is responsible for 7,000 suppliers with 300,000 indirect suppliers that are not even part of her remit. The Groceries Code Adjudicator was set up to address the imbalance between large supermarkets and their suppliers, because there had been a long-standing problem.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  41. That is an excellent point, because it highlights the fact that when Ministers and Government MPs say that cuts can be made in administration or in non-essential roles, there are consequences. As the hon. Gentleman says, one of the consequences is in accounting departments, and there is a potential knock-on effect of the late payment of small businesses. One reason why it would be a good idea to include the public sector is that the commissioner could shine a light on some of those problems, gaps and staff shortages. They could say to the Government that they should rethink the scale of cuts in the public sector, that the consequences of those cuts also have an effect on the private sector and the wider economy, and that perhaps those Treasury decisions should be reconsidered.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  42. There has been a very interesting series of exchanges during the Minister’s remarks. She mentioned the Australian experience and quoted Lord Mendelsohn’s analysis of what happened. The Australian small business commissioner was set up not to resolve late payment, but to deal with a number of other matters, including advice, complaints, mediation and small business support. Mark Brennan, the Victorian small business commissioner, advised that this approach should not be used to go after late payments.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  43. I am sure that she speaks to businesses, as I do, who say they consider it a complete and utter waste of their time to even try to get business directly with the public sector. Their experiences and the experiences of associates, friends, business competitors and collaborators alike, has been of a lack of success in the past. I do not think we have had an adequate response. I do not think we have dealt with the issues around the supply chain or with the problems around the scale of the problem of paper invoices for small businesses. We did not get an answer about how the mystery shopper scheme works; it is something of a mystery, the Minister seemed to say. I do not think she sounded confident in it herself.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  44. She will have found it almost impossible, I suspect, to prevent the NHS trust from knowing the identity of that construction firm when she took that complaint to them. There is always the risk, as I said earlier, of a loss of business later on. That is one of the concerns expressed again and again by small businesses: that when they complain and put their heads above the parapet, they lose future business. It damages the business relationship irreparably. This is one reason why it is so important that there should be an independent opportunity. We will come to anonymity and confidentiality later. A large number of small businesses are still involved. The Minister mentioned the point about prequalification questionnaires having been removed.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  45. It would be not just bizarre but quite disturbing if BIS did not have a very high success rate when it came to undisputed invoices being paid on time, but that does not take away from the fact that, right across those four Departments, a significant level of late payment still exists. The Federation of Small Businesses figures for 2012 show 27% in local government and 29% in national Government, and my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North cited a higher figure of 34%. There is still a phenomenally big problem of late payment in the public sector when it comes to small businesses. The Minister cited the example of trying to support a construction firm involved with the NHS—I commend her for trying to solve the problem, as others of us have tried.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  46. Lord Mendelsohn had a long meeting with that commissioner and spoke to him a number of times. The clear sense we were given was that the success in Australia has been about other matters; actually, when it comes to late payment, there has not been a success. There has not been the progress on late payment and Australia is probably not the place to go to learn about action on late payment. That was the evidence that was taken and very clearly set out by Hansard in the Lords. That is, of course, one reason why we are tabling these amendments: they are about learning from the success that Mark Brennan has had and the advice he has been able to give on those matters. The Minister talked about success. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley said in an intervention, we would expect BIS to pay every invoice on time—of course we would.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  47. I would love to know what the remedy is when the scheme identifies a problem, but we did not hear about that; perhaps we will later. With those remarks, I would like to press the first amendment in the group and test the will of the Committee. Question put , That the amendment be made.

    ENTERPRISE BILL [ LORDS ] (FIRST SITTING) · 2016-02-09 · READ IN HANSARD

  48. The Association of British Insurers puts the average cost of flood damage at £50,000 per business property, yet the average pay-out under the repair and review scheme has been just £1,666. That is well down on the £5,000 promised, with many businesses yet to receive a penny. In an Adjournment debate last week, we heard about the damage caused in Leeds during the last Parliament and the promises that have not been kept in relation to that. Will the Secretary of State make sure that the Prime Minister keeps his word that “money is no object” when it comes to support for businesses that have been hit hard by the recent floods?

    FLOODS: EFFECT ON BUSINESSES · 2016-02-02 · READ IN HANSARD

  49. 16. The north of England rail electrification taskforce, which the Minister chaired, recommends as its second priority Liverpool to Manchester via Warrington, with Southport and Kirkby to Salford Crescent as its third. Can he tell us when the work on those projects will take place?

    TRANS-PENNINE RAIL LINE · 2016-01-28 · READ IN HANSARD

  50. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He mentioned subcontractors. May I quote to him a subcontractor in my constituency—Steve Murray, the managing director of W T Jenkins? He told me: “Cash retention is harming our sector and our company in particular. We have to wait far too long for the retentions, if we receive them at all. We have lost a lot of revenue over the last five years due to many companies going into administration and taking our monies with them.” On Monday in his office, Mr Murray showed me a shelf full of files about firms that owe him money, in some cases for more than eight, nine or even 10 years.

    BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS: CASH RETENTIONS · 2016-01-27 · READ IN HANSARD