OLDHAM East and Saddleworth MP Debbie Abrahams has criticised the government for a "lack of commitment to tackling late payments".

Mrs Abrahams was echoing the sentiment of the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), who have slammed the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) consultation on payment practices.

She has a history of fighting the issue of late payments by large businesses to small businesses having previously started the Be Fair - Pay on Time campaign and trying to push through a bill to tackle the problem.

Mrs Abrahams said: "In these uncertain times, and as the economy recovers from the pandemic, small businesses working across the public and private sectors need the security of payment wherever they are in the supply chain. "

The BEIS's consultation on The Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations looks to improve the transparency of large businesses' payments and give smaller businesses more information to make informed decisions.

However, AAT has said the regulations are "wholly misguided", an "ineffective policy response" and don't offer "any genuinely helpful information".

Mrs Abrahams concurred with AAT, saying: "For the Government to publish a consultation with restrictive and leading questions shows a disregard for hearing the views of key stakeholders and reduces engagement to a ‘tick box’ exercise."

She said that although late payments had come down from £41.5 billion in 2014 to £25 billion currently, the numbers were still far too high and said the government had been "painfully slow" in tackling the issue.

Mrs Abrahams created the Be Fair - Pay on Time campaign in 2012 after a constituent told her his business was being damaged due to a supermarket chain's late payments.

She also proposed a bill called the Public Sector Supply Chains (Project Bank Accounts) Bill, which aimed to make payments on government and public authority contracts to be made through a “project bank account” system. However, this failed to pass through Parliament in 2019.

Mrs Abrahams said she will continue to press ministers to take action and said the implementation of her proposed bill should be the first step to tackling the issue.