In the wake of the lack of effective measures to deal with payment abuse following the Carillion collapse two years ago, Labour peer Lord Mendelsohn will introduce today (21 January 2020) a new payment bill.
Lord Mendelsohn has taken up representations from leading construction body, the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group and others, to improve payment security for SMEs.
The bill incorporates the following measures:
Rudi Klein, SEC Group’s CEO, welcomed the move by Lord Mendelsohn. “I wish to place on record my thanks to Lord Mendelsohn and also the thanks of SMEs in the UK’s construction industry which have had to bear the impact of payment abuse and losses from major insolvencies in the industry,” he said.
“The construction industry is in the midst of an insolvency crisis with 2019 insolvencies likely to overtake by a wide margin the figure of 3,013 insolvencies in 2018. The government’s manifesto for the recent election made clear that it would “clamp down on late payment” but, since Carillion’s collapse, all we have had are numerous consultation documents,” said Klein.