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Posted: Tue 25th Aug 2026
5 min read
There's a new minister for small business, and this one has genuinely done the job small business owners do.
Lord Sonny Leong CBE co-founded a publishing company, built it into a market leader, and sold it – a proper entrepreneurial journey from start to exit.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed Lord Leong minister for small business and enterprise on 22 July. He replaces Blair McDougall, who has moved to a new reindustrialisation role which he will work jointly with DBIST and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Lord Leong sits in the House of Lords, so he holds the brief from there rather than the Commons.
He is no stranger to the department either, having served as a government whip and junior business minister since July 2024, and before that as .
He was born in Malaysia and came to the UK to study in the 1970s, reading economics and law. He was made a CBE in 2014 for political service and joined the Lords in 2022.
In 1990 he co-founded Cavendish Publishing, a legal publisher. By 2003 it was the largest independent academic law publisher in the UK, and in 2006 he sold it to Taylor & Francis.
He knows the early grind, the cash flow pressure and the exit.
After the sale, he ran the Civil Service College, a training business, and chaired the Independent Publishers Guild. He has said he loves starting businesses and creating employment, and takes real pride in mentoring founders.
Before entering government, Lord Leong co-founded and co-chaired SME4Labour, the group that connects small firms with the Labour Party.
He has spent a decade listening to founders in rooms, and with his experience, he will be able to understand that a sole trader's challenges are different from those of a corporation.
Late payment is the issue our members raise more than any other, and we have campaigned on it for years. Lord Leong is the minister who has been steering the Commercial Payments Bill through the House of Lords.
That Bill caps payment terms at 60 days, makes interest on late payments mandatory, and gives the Small Business Commissioner real enforcement powers. It is expected to reach the Commons in September.
Introducing it, he told peers:
"I am a former business owner."
He went on to describe firms enduring costly litigation just to recover money already owed to them.
The minister now responsible for delivering the Bill argued for it from lived experience. This is more pressing than ever after our most recent Small Business Barometer found that late payments is more widespread than it was a few years ago.
On his appointment, he described businesses of every size as the engine of the economy. His stated priority is to "create the conditions in which they can succeed, thrive and grow.”
Lord Leong has also promised regular communication with the smallest firms. Speaking in the Lords last year, he said his priority was regular contact with micro businesses in particular – which is music to our ears!
His record points one other way worth knowing. He took the Employment Rights Bill through the Lords and defended it robustly, so he backs stronger workers' rights alongside business growth.
Our asks are ready:
Get the Commercial Payments Bill onto the statute book without dilution
Make sure digital and tax support reaches the very smallest firms
Keep small business at the centre of the Autumn Budget on 28 October, with no additional tax burdens on an already stretched small business community
Image credit: © House of Lords / photography by Roger Harris
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