MP leads prompt payment fight

A CAMPAIGN urging the UK’s FTSE 100 companies to sign up to the Prompt Payment Code has been launched by the Knutsford-based Forum of Private Business and by Oldham East MP Debbie Abrahams.

The pair have written to the UK’s 100 biggest stockmarket-listed companies alongside the Federation of Small Business (FSB) chairman John Walker and Institute of Credit Management CEO Philip King urging those that haven’t signed up to the voluntary code already to do so.

It states that smaller firms are owed more than £33.6bn in late payments.

“If we compare this to the £56bn lent to small businesses in 2011 you can see the scale of the problem,” the letter states. “Despite this, no trading SMEs will go on the record or speak out publicly about the difficulties that they have been experiencing for fear of losing contracts.”

Currently, just a quarter of the FTSE 100 are signed up to the Prompt Payment Code.

Ms Abrahams said: “In the current climate I cannot imagine why a multi-million pound company with a healthy balance sheet would not be prepared to lead by example and sign up to the code.

“If they don’t, then I think the public will start to view all big businesses in the same way as they now view the banking industry.”

Phil Orford, CEO of the Forum of Private Business, said: “The Prompt Payment Code is something all large firms could and should subscribe to. The code asks nothing more from responsible businesses than to pay suppliers as and when agreed, without changing terms and conditions retrospectively.

“We know FTSE 100 businesses are bastions of the UK’s private sector, and by subscribing to the code will be leading the way as they rightly should for others to follow.”