The King's Speech landed today, and if you run a small or growing business, there is more in it for you than you might expect. Buried beneath the ceremony and constitutional fanfare are three changes that speak directly to issues clients raise with us regularly - getting paid on time, cutting through regulatory red tape, and trading with mainland Europe. There are a few other measures worth flagging too.
Here's what you need to know.
If you've ever spent hours chasing an invoice, or watched a large customer sit on payment for 90 days while your own bills kept coming, this one's for you.
The Government's figures are stark: late payment costs UK small businesses £11 billion a year and is behind around 14,000 closures annually. The Small Business Protections (Late Payments) Bill is the most significant response to that problem since 1998.
The key changes:
A statutory 60-day maximum payment term will apply to UK B2B contracts. Large customers will no longer be able to impose 90- or 120-day terms as a condition of doing business with them. There are narrow exceptions - broadly, where both parties are large companies - but for most SME supply relationships, 60 days becomes the hard ceiling.
Late payment interest (currently 8% above the Bank of England base rate) will become mandatory and impossible to contract out of. At the moment, a clause offering a "substantial remedy" can effectively strip you of that right. That loophole is being closed.
The bill also introduces a deadline for raising invoice disputes. The tactic of manufacturing a query just as payment falls due - deliberately or otherwise - will no longer be a viable stalling mechanism.
For construction businesses, the bill bans the withholding of retentions under construction contracts. Retentions have been a persistent cash flow problem for subcontractors, and when an upstream contractor becomes insolvent, they're often lost entirely. That practice ends.
Probably the most practically significant change: the Small Business Commissioner will gain powers to adjudicate disputes and impose fines. Until now, the SBC could investigate and name-and-shame but couldn't do much else. Going forward, it offers a real alternative to court for recovering what you're owed.
What to do now:
The 60-day cap won't come into force before 2027, but the contracts you sign between now and then will still apply when it does:
- audit your customer contracts - as anything beyond 60 days will need renegotiating.
- remove clauses that limit or exclude late payment interest from your supplier agreements.
- make sure your invoicing process record when invoices are deliver
- if you're in construction, review your retention clauses now.
Despite the name, this isn't about scrapping regulations wholesale. What it does do is two things that could genuinely help innovative businesses.
Firstly, it strengthens the statutory duty on regulators - including the Environment Agency, Natural England and the HSE - to treat economic growth as a genuine priority, not an afterthought. Regulators will face greater accountability when their decisions impede growth without clear justification.
Secondly, it gives ministers the power to create regulatory sandboxes: time-limited, controlled environments where businesses can trial products or business models that fall outside existing rules, without the usual legal jeopardy. The FCA has run a version of this for fintech for years. The bill extends that approach across the whole economy.
The government is also launching an AI Growth Lab under this programme, allowing AI products and related regulatory reforms to be tested under real-world conditions.
Who does this matter to?
If your business sits in a sector where the regulatory framework wasn't written with your technology or model in mind - medical tech, AI services, autonomous logistics, food innovation - this is potentially significant. The sandbox route could get you to market faster than waiting for primary legislation to catch up. For everyone else, the strengthened Growth Duty gives you a stronger basis to push back on regulatory decisions that feel disproportionate. Keep a record of those interactions - they may become relevant as the new framework beds in.
The European Partnership Bill is a framework law that allows the government to implement specific deals already under negotiation with the EU. It doesn't take the UK back into the Single Market or Customs Union, and customs declarations and rules-of-origin requirements stay in place for most goods. It addresses some of the costliest friction points that have made EU trade unworkable for many smaller businesses since 2021.
Food, drink and agriculture (the SPS agreement). Since Brexit, exporting food, animals or plants to the EU has meant Export Health Certificates at up to £200 each, phytosanitary certificates, and per-consignment inspection fees. For a small food producer, the paperwork alone can make European sales uneconomic. The SPS deal removes most of that certification burden for agreed product categories. In return, the UK aligns with EU food safety law on an ongoing basis - better export economics, but a new compliance obligation to manage.
Carbon Border Adjustment and emissions trading. The EU's CBAM effectively imposes a levy on imports from countries with weaker carbon pricing, and UK exporters of steel, aluminium, cement and similar products are directly in its sights. The bill creates the conditions for the UK and EU to link their emissions trading schemes - if that linkage completes, those exporters get a mutual exemption. The government puts £7 billion of UK exports at stake.
Electricity. A UK–EU electricity trading deal should reduce average energy prices and improve supply security - a bottom-line benefit for energy-intensive businesses.
What to do now:
The SPS agreement isn't expected to be in force until mid-2027, so the immediate steps are about preparation rather than compliance:
- if you export food or agricultural products to the EU, cost out what you currently spend on certification. The changes may open routes to market that haven't made commercial sense until now.
- if you're in a CBAM-affected sector, you need specialist advice on reporting obligations that apply right now - the exemption depends on a deal that hasn't completed yet.
- review any supply contracts with EU-facing compliance clauses. As the UK aligns wit EU Food law, contracts that reference specific certification requirements will need updating.
Financial services. The Enhancing Financial Services Bill consolidates the Payment Systems Regulator into the FCA, reforms the Senior Managers Regime and makes changes intended to free up more bank lending to SMEs. Gradual improvement for businesses raising debt finance.
Competition law. The Competition Reform Bill cuts CMA market reviews from potentially three years to 18–24 months in most cases and clarifies merger jurisdiction tests. Useful if your business is being acquired, or if you're competing against a dominant player.
Digital ID. The Digital Access to Services Bill builds the legal framework for digital identity verification. For SMEs in fintech, recruitment or online services, this should mean simpler, cheaper onboarding - alongside new obligations around how identity data is handled.
Cyber security. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill updates obligations on digital service providers and managed service providers. If you supply IT or cloud services to regulated industries, expect new technical and reporting requirements to flow down through your contracts.