Karren Brady: force big companies to pay small firms faster

Karren Brady, the vice-chairman of West Ham and the Coalition’s Small Business Ambassador, hopes to introduce new rules that would force large companies to pay small businesses faster.

The colourful football boss, who is drawing up plans to boost small firms that she will submit to the Government, said it is ethically wrong for big business to damage small firms’ cashflow by taking weeks to pay them for services and products.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Ms Brady, who is also Lord Sugar’s adviser on the BBC’s The Apprentice, said: “It’s incredible to me that bigger companies string out smaller companies in their payment terms. It’s not ethical or right. But we need to work out how to help practically, how to legislate.”

She wants to produce a practical report that ministers can implement. “I want to find out what the issues with small businesses are and find ways in which the Government can fix them,” she says. “A lot of the problems are the same where ever you go – cashflow, lending, business rates on the high street and Government procurement.”

Ms Brady, who insisted she does not want to become a politician, criticised Labour’s plans to attack big business, particularly the banks and energy giants.

She said: “You have to understand what big business does for the country — the taxes they pay, the people they employ, the exports they create, the investment and opportunities. It’s bad for the UK to generalise that all big businesses are untrustworthy. If you chase people out of the country, who pays the tax?

“At the end of the day, you will have to put the taxes up for the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker instead. If the bankers leave the country, ultimately that burden has to be borne by others.”

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