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Commercial Payments Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 10 in my name. Before that, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on Amendments 1 and 9. These seem to be eminently sensible suggestions. I wonder whether, if the Small Business Commissioner makes very clear their view on when the clock starts ticking, that would make it very clear should any dispute become necessary. At the very least, there needs to be clarity from the Small Business Commissioner if these amendments are not accepted.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe, Lord Hunt and Lord Leigh, for their support of Amendment 10. The intention of the amendment is clear. Increasingly, economic activity is switching from familiar structures and supply chains to one where businesses market their goods and services via third-party marketplaces and intermediaries, and where the subsequent payment goes back through those intermediaries. The amendment would bring such marketplaces and intermediaries into the context of the Bill by providing that payment is not treated as made to a supplier until the supplier actually receives the money, by requiring any intermediary that collects on a supplier’s behalf to pay it within seven days, regardless of how the intermediary is legally categorised.

I think this is a fair change, though I am sure that there will be resistance from the sector. The focus may well be on the time needed by the intermediary to make the payment to the vendor. A distinction may have to be made between when an intermediary has control of the goods in a warehouse and when it is purely acting as an agent. I am happy to have a discussion and debate about this, and there may be ways in which this can be dealt with. However, it would be very remiss for the legislation to leave your Lordships’ House without any provision, either primary or secondary, for the Small Business Commissioner to have or take the power to bring intermediaries into the remit of the Bill.