HC Deb 10 March 1970 vol 797 cc1094-5
5. Mr. Boyden

asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what is the estimated amount of money owed to British building contractors at any convenient time because of the prevailing practice of clients retaining a percentage of payments due against possible defects.

Mr. John Silkin

Information is not available to enable this amount to be directly measured, but I estimate it to be roughly £30 million for building, and £10 million for civil engineering.

Mr. Boyden

Would not an investigation into this be suitable? Would it not be a good idea to alter the rule so that builders are not so short of credit —of course, in the long term?

Mr. Silkin

That is a long way outside the scope of this Question, which dealt with retention against defects rather than retention in general. Certainly the building industry might consider this matter well worth studying.

Mr. Chichester-Clark

But since the National Joint Council in 1967 found that at any one time there was £500 million outstanding to the building industry and that 20 per cent. of that was retention money, what steps is the right hon. Gentleman taking to goad his colleagues in other Departments into being prompter payers?

Mr. Silkin

Retentions on interim payments—I do not challenge the hon. Gentleman's figures—normally vary between about 3 and 5 per cent. It is not a tremendous amount. I have had no representations from the industry recently, but I have said that this is something which the industry itself, because of its credit position, might consider studying.