I will come back on that point soon, if I can; otherwise I will write to the noble Lord with the figures, if we have them.
I turn to the public sector side of this afternoon’s debate. The proposals in Amendments 2 and 36 would widen the complaints-handing function to cover all matters relating to supply of goods and services to
public authorities as well as larger businesses, and would require the annual report to summarise such complaints.
Where a small business has a payment issue with a public authority—I do not suggest that that does not happen; small businesses do have problems with public authorities—we consider that it is better addressed by existing frameworks. If I may, I shall talk the Committee through some of the existing frameworks. The first that I would mention would be the mystery shopper—slightly oddly named, I would say. It provides small businesses with an easy route to raise concerns about public sector procurement practices. It can investigate complaints about the procurement practices of the public sector and issue instructions and recommendations to remedy the situation. It publishes the outcome of its cases on its website and through its social media, naming the public authority involved.
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In response to my noble friend Lord Hodgson, I have an excerpt here of a report by the Mystery Shopper service, covering April to September of this year, which shows individual cases where the service has looked into public procurement and payment issues. It evidences that the service is focused on the very issues that my noble friend has raised. There is a good example involving the Ministry of Defence. The report says:
“A Mystery Shopper raised concerns in April that they had not been paid by a subcontractor”,
whose name I will not mention. It,
“initially confirmed that the supplier had been paid after initial enquiries had been made. However this proved not to be the case so the team continued to press”,
the firm concerned,
“and the Mystery Shopper subsequently confirmed that the outstanding invoice had been paid”.
I like this example because it shows the detailed work that is being done on the public sector side with the Mystery Shopper scheme.
We have looked at the whole area of public payments because the Government should do in its own backyard what it is urging business to do. There is a framework which applies 30-day mandatory payment terms. Businesses can charge interest on late payments and claim administrative costs. There are new reporting requirements on the Government and we have legislated to cascade 30-day payment terms down public sector supply chains. The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 include a number of innovations on exactly the points that my noble friend Lord Hodgson raised; for example, a pre-qualification stage below the EU level, and a number of improvements which get at payment and actually go a little bit wider. I would be interested to talk to him about whether he thinks these are beginning to help. There is a “contracts finder” website as well. Noble Lords will know that I am always very keen to have information on public change on the web so that people can access it. We have a public policy commitment for central government to pay 80% of undisputed invoices within five days.
For all those reasons—I hope noble Lords will forgive me for going on at such length but these are important reforms—we think it is right to limit the
role of the Small Business Commissioner. Having said that, although the commissioner’s focus will be on business and small business, he or she will have an important signposting role to help small businesses deal with complaints against public authorities, to ensure that they get the support that they require. I hope I have responded to the main points that were made in the debate and that the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.