Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proportion of invoices from small and medium-sized businesses were paid by his Department within five working days of receipt in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Norman Baker (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Regional and Local Transport), Transport; Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
The percentage of invoices paid within five days by the Department for the 12 months June 2010 to May 2011 is 90.66%. It is not possible to distinguish those which relate to small and medium-sized businesses.
This represents 181,653 invoices paid within five days for the 12-month period out of 200,374 invoices received.
The Department does not currently record and publish information about the size of suppliers as this does not fully reflect the number and size of businesses engaged in supplying goods and services. We do not discriminate by size of business because many SMEs can be found within larger supply chains.