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Closed Establish penalties against companies for systematic late payment of invoices

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Freelancers make up 15% of the UK workforce, yet there has been little change in legislation to support this shift. In particular the lack of appropriate legislation around payment terms gives freelancers little practical power to ensure terms are enforced - resulting in serious cash flow issues.

A small survey of freelancers (97 people) found that everyone had experienced late payment and 37.5% had to wait over 6 months to be paid - some people were never paid. Companies should simply not be allowed to operate like this.

Options currently available include taking a company to small claims court, which is costly & time consuming, and late payment fines which are an inadequate solution as again require the invoice to at some point be paid - and don't fix cash flow issues.

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    If this petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament.

    This petition will stay open until 13 March 2019.