CARILLION AND SMALL BUSINESS PAYMENTS

That this House believes that small businesses must not be punished for the misdeeds of a failed large company; notes that the collapse of Carillion highlights the payment abuse suffered by sub-contractors engaged in the delivery of public contracts for a Prime contractor; further notes that 30-day payment regulations for public sector contracts are routinely ignored by Prime contractors and left unenforced, which facilitate practices such as Carillion's 126-day payment terms, leaving thousands of SMEs exposed; in addition, notes that £700 million has been lost in the supply chain over the last three years as retention fees are held back from subcontractors by Prime contractors while it reported that Carillion alone will see £800 million of such fees disappear, along with an amassed £1.5 billion in unsecured debt; calls on the Government to honour all outstanding payments on public contracts for work completed; further calls on the Government to protect local economies and jobs by ensuring redistributed contracts remain with SMEs; calls on the Government to take action to enforce public sector 30-day payment regulations with consequences including the disqualification of those that do not comply from winning public contracts; and calls on the Government to introduce new legislative proposals to place construction retentions into secure and independently held deposit protection schemes and tougher measures to limit borrowing against public contracts.