Hannah Vickers, chief executive of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) responds:

“We have long campaigned for reform of the payment culture in this country, and our members will be delighted with today’s news which is a positive step in the right direction.

“While we will, of course, need to wait to see how effective these changes are in practice, it represents the right shift in tone on a crucial issue for SMEs. To put it bluntly, they cannot be expected to help society bounce back from the pandemic if they are spending most of their time chasing payments owed to them.

“We will be closely monitoring the impact of these new measures over the coming weeks and months, but it is vital that as much money as possible is flowing through the supply chain at this critical moment in time, and today’s announcements will hopefully ensure that this is the case.”