To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent estimate he has made of the proportion of invoices to his Department payable to small and medium-sized enterprises which are settled within 10 days. (245913)

The Department has configured its systems to enable its performance to be measured against 10-day targets announced by the Prime Minister on 8 October 2008. However, it is not possible at present to identify those suppliers that fall within the definition of ‘small and medium sized enterprises’.

The first formal data collection on performance against the 10-day target is being co-ordinated across Government by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform based on November 2008 statistics. 98.02 per cent. of payments made to all suppliers, regardless of size, by the Department in November were made within 10 working days of receipt of the invoice.