PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Post Office Horizon: Redress - 9 September 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)
Debate Detail
My priority as the new Secretary of State is to ensure that victims of the scandal receive the redress that they deserve. Over the past few weeks, I have begun meeting with some of the postmasters whose lives have been so badly damaged by those events. Their stories are harrowing, but their resilience and steadfastness in seeking justice are inspiring. I am also grateful for their candour in sharing insights on how the various compensation schemes can be improved.
May I make a personal point, Madam Deputy Speaker? I know I speak for hon. Members across the House when I say that it fills me with sadness to have to stand here today and address such a significant failure of the state. The role of Government must be to do right, seek justice and defend the oppressed, yet Governments have too often had to be forced into action by brave, tireless and resilient campaigning. Once again, I pay tribute to the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, and to campaigners such as Jo Hamilton, Lee Castleton and Sir Alan Bates—incidentally, I add my personal congratulations to Sir Alan on his recent wedding. Without their tireless efforts, justice may well never have been done in this case. As we stand here today, in the shadow not just of this scandal but those of Grenfell, infected blood and several more, I know that it is the firm conviction of everyone in this House that we must do better. This is an issue not of politics but of justice.
In that spirit, I cannot speak of the new Government’s work to address this wrong without again acknowledging and appreciating the work of Lord Arbuthnot and the new Lord Beamish—formerly the Member for North Durham—as well as that of my friend the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) as Minister. The announcements that we make today are built on their efforts to hasten redress payments and quash wrongful convictions.
Earlier in the summer, the new Government announced the launch of the Horizon conviction redress scheme. I am pleased to report that the first payments have been issued and good progress made on processing the claims received to date. As was the case for the group litigation order compensation scheme, the Department will be setting a target to make, within 40 working days, the first offer to 90% of those who have submitted a full claim. Additionally, the Post Office has now settled over 50% of cases on the overturned convictions scheme, with 57 out of 111 cases fully settled. The Department has also now received over 50% of GLO claims and settled over 200 of them.
Progress has also been made on implementing the £75,000 fixed-sum awards on the Horizon shortfall scheme. As of 30 August, over 1,350 claimants who had previously settled below the £75,000 threshold have been offered top-ups to bring them to that amount, and the Post Office will shortly begin making fixed-sum offers to new claimants. Those interventions will have a significant impact on ensuring that postmasters can access redress swiftly and simply. However, we recognise that this option will not suit everyone and does not address all the concerns raised by postmasters and their representatives. That is why we are taking further action today.
The Horizon compensation advisory board recommended last year that we introduce an independent appeals process for the Horizon shortfall scheme. Today I am pleased to announce that we have accepted that recommendation. That appeals process will enable claimants who have settled their claim under the HSS to have their case reassessed, with the benefit of any new information that they were not able to include in the original application. It will be delivered in-house by my Department, and we will apply the lessons learned from redress schemes to date to ensure that the process is easy for postmasters to engage with and that outcomes are delivered at pace. We will announce further details in the coming months.
There will be no obligation for postmasters to appeal their settlement, and no doubt many will be content that their claims have been resolved fairly. I know that financial redress will never fully compensate victims for their suffering, but we want to help bring some closure to postmasters as soon as we can, which is why we will establish the new appeals process as quickly as possible.
In summary, the new Government will do everything in our power to deliver justice for postmasters, to bring them closure and to ensure that such a national tragedy is never allowed to happen again. I commend this statement to the House.
As the Opposition promised during the very first urgent question of this Parliament, Ministers know that they will receive our full support to deliver compensation swiftly and quash the convictions of those wronged by this terrible tragedy. In his statement, the Secretary of State has set out a new appeals process for those who have already settled their claim under the Horizon shortfall scheme. I welcome that step. I know that the Department is implementing the work of the Horizon compensation advisory board, which was instrumental during my time in office, and will no doubt be supporting the new Government.
However, I have some questions about the Secretary of State’s statement. First, he confirmed that the appeals process will be open for claimants who have settled their claim under the HSS, but it is restricted to those who have new evidence to support their case. In the same breath, he recognised lessons learned from redress schemes to date, indicating that his Department is aware of the flaws in the scheme, which I also acknowledge. Crucially, will the appeals process also be available, as it should be, to all claimants, not just those with new information? Given the accepted flaws in the scheme, it would be wrong to leave individuals without the opportunity to appeal. If people choose the £75,000 top-up, will they be entitled to appeal? If so, there is a risk that for those wanting to go through the appeal process it will be a slower process because of the number of people seeking to appeal.
Secondly, the Secretary of State says that the appeals process will be up and running as soon as possible. Can he set out a specific timeline? Finally, on appeals, can he tell the House whether these individuals will be entitled to legal representation, as is the case in the GLO process?
Could I also ask the Secretary of State some questions about the broader compensation schemes? Some £289 million has been paid to over 2,800 claimants across four schemes. I was alarmed to find, however, that only six claims have been offered redress through the Horizon convictions redress scheme, and no full and final settlements have yet been made through that scheme. Can he explain those numbers?
I was also concerned to hear the Secretary of State say last week that only 130 letters have been written to postmasters who have had convictions quashed—I think there are 700 such postmasters—and that this was a matter for the Ministry of Justice, rather than his office. I am sure he realises that finger-pointing within Government will not wash with the people who have been through these difficulties and this horrendous scandal, so I must therefore push him on what steps he has taken to mitigate the delays in sending out letters to those affected.
Finally, delay in all the schemes is at least partially the result of an adversarial process of lawyers arguing with lawyers. As a remedy, we were working very hard for Sir Gary Hickinbottom, scheme reviewer in the overturned convictions scheme, to be appointed across all three schemes to expedite claims. Can the Secretary of State confirm that that vital appointment has now been made?
In a situation where someone has already received a top-up to £75,000, the hon. Member is right to say that the appeals scheme would not be available. It is a choice between the two best methods of redress and satisfaction for the postmaster. I recognise what the hon. Member has said—that, given the issues with the speed of delivering redress, having that system clogged up would not be satisfactory to anyone—but I think that both options represent reasonable ways forward for people who are in that position.
The hon. Member asked specifically about the remit of the appeals scheme, and I have listened to what he said. The reason we are announcing today that we will take this scheme forward, but will then consult with postmasters to make sure the eligibility criteria are correct—he asked about the timeline, which is just a matter of months—is to make sure that we do not have to revisit the scheme, and can all be satisfied that crucially, postmasters themselves have confidence in it. That is the intention, so I am grateful to the hon. Member for his comments about the remit of the scheme.
The hon. Member asked about legal representation. Yes, that is part of the scheme, again learning lessons from where we have been in the past. As he knows, most of the schemes have now been adjusted to reflect that, but I absolutely take his point about new announcements.
I want to be clear about the difficulty that has existed with the Horizon convictions redress scheme. To update the House, I will give the hon. Member the figures: so far, 180 letters have gone out from the Ministry of Justice. Including those letters and the people who have registered with the Government who perhaps have not all received a letter yet, there are now 276 claimants. I will make the appeal again: while we are doing everything we can with Ministry of Justice colleagues to make sure those letters go out, people can proactively register with the Government. To be frank, this has been a frustration. When the hon. Member and I were having our conversations when we sat in different places in the Chamber, neither of us perhaps knew the state of the database and the records, and—having passed the legislation—the frustrations we would face in getting to people. However, doing so is clearly integral to sorting this out.
Finally, the hon. Member asked about the scheme reviewer. If I may, I will come back to him on that; I will write to him to tell him the up-to-date situation.
In summary, I say again that we will work with all parties and all postmasters to get redress at pace, and to learn the lessons from where things have not gone well in the past, to make sure new announcements carry the confidence of the people who really need to have confidence in them.
I welcome what the Secretary of State has set out for the House this afternoon. When our Select Committee reported back in March, we said that trust in the Post Office was fundamentally broken and that the appeals scheme needed to be independent. This is an important step in that direction, but sub-postmasters have told me this morning that there is still a problem with the time it takes to get offers back when an offer is contested. The claimant’s lawyers have a fixed amount of time to put in a claim; when that claim is contested, it is taking far too long for Addleshaws, in particular, to come back and provide a second offer. What comfort can sub-postmasters take from the Secretary of State’s announcement today? This whole House agrees that justice delayed is justice denied.
I think it is worth saying that we are dealing with a catastrophic injustice that has affected hundreds upon hundreds of families—people who have paid with their livelihoods and, in some cases, tragically, with their lives. There is a complete lack of trust in Government, of whatever political colour, over the last 20 or so years because of this. That is why his answer to the questions raised already about the number of sub-postmasters who have been paid interim payments—only six, on the last data available, under the Horizon convictions redress scheme—is such a key issue. Likewise, as we have heard, the latest data show that fewer than one in six wrongly accused sub-postmasters have received letters confirming the quashing of their convictions.
Given this lack of trust—this mistrust—in Governments of whatever kind and in the Post Office management as a whole, would the Secretary of State also turn his thoughts to rebuilding trust in the Post Office management and in the network in the long term? In the eyes of the public, the brand of the post office is solid, but in the eyes of those who work in the industry and those who may come in as sub-postmasters, it is far less so. We were delighted in my constituency recently to see the reopening of post offices in Shap and Kirby Stephen. It was wonderful to see those two reopenings, but in Grasmere, Hawkshead and Stavely we are without post offices. In all three of those cases, it is in part because the former sub-postmaster, while not always directly affected by the Horizon scandal, but with disgust at the Post Office management, has left the industry and left those villages without a post office.
What can the Secretary of State say to this House and to the current cadre of sub-postmasters, and those who may want to join that cadre, to encourage them? Will he focus on pastoral care, financial support and other things that will bring about a package of inducements and enticements, so that those people who have felt let down so badly by Post Office Ltd management over the last 20 years will feel that the Post Office is something they can commit their lives to for the good of our communities and country as a whole?
Like the hon. Member, I have seen the post office network change a lot in my constituency. I was at the new banking hub in Stalybridge on Friday. I think the public support for the brand and for the people on the frontline is very strong, but the business model, as it stands, is not fit for purpose. Postmasters deliver essential services, but they do not make enough money from those essential services. I think too much of the money they make goes into the centre and does not return to the frontline in a way that is a viable business model for all of our constituencies. The issue of how the Post Office functions as an organisation has to be tied not just culturally to the reforms and redress we are all seeking to deliver, but to the business model.
There have recently been complaints, even from legal experts, that the application form for redress is overly complex, and that even experts would struggle to fill it in. Can the Secretary of State look to simplify it, obviously without our getting away from the key points, and bearing in mind the data that need to be collected?
Finally, I associate myself with the comments made about the wider impact. It is only a week since the Grenfell report’s publication, and mention was made during the previous statement about the covid contracts. These issues go right to the heart of trust in the Government, which is a really important point to address.
We must reflect on what has been a very difficult set of findings. I think that we can commit to making sure that we learn the lessons from them, and take them forward. That is the challenge for all of us who believe that we are here to do good, and to do as I said in the statement. There is more to do on that, but we can move in the right direction, and that is certainly what I and my Government Ministers will do.
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