Member

Through this legislation or any other, the Government are not really addressing these power asymmetries. It is hard to see how disclosures, on their own, would improve the bargaining position of small or even medium-sized companies. The Government could have supported SMEs to form co-operatives and act together to secure better trading terms from large corporations, but no such policy has been developed by any Government for as long as I can remember. They could reform insolvency laws to help SMEs. In the event of a bankruptcy of a major customer, SMEs rank as unsecured creditors and recover almost nothing of the amounts owed to them. If the insolvency law were changed—say, for example, 30% to 40% of the proceeds from the sale of assets were reserved for unsecured creditors—SMEs would get something, which would enable thousands of them to survive to become the next big giant business that we badly need. But that is not on any Government’s agenda either.