Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what information his Department holds on the number of businesses which were bankrupted as a result of late payment of invoices.

The Department does not hold information on the number of businesses which were bankrupted as a result of late payment of invoice. We recognise that late payment is an issue and know that 61% of businesses that give credit consider late payment a problem.^[1] We are implementing a package of measures to support a cultural change toward prompt payment, including the Small Business Commissioner, the duty for large businesses to report on payment practices and support for the voluntary Prompt Payment Code.

[1] BIS RESEARCH PAPER NUMBER 289, Longitudinal Small Business Survey Year 1 (2015): SME employers, May 2016