PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Post Office Horizon: Redress - 9 September 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to update the House on the Government’s response to the Horizon scandal. How appropriate it is to see you, a former Business and Trade Minister, in the Chair.

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.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his response, and for the tone and collaboration that we tried to model when we were sitting in opposite places in this Chamber. I believe that helped advance what was a difficult piece of legislation to put on the statute book, particularly during a wash-up process, but was the only real vehicle for delivering what we all wanted to see. He has asked me a number of questions; all are absolutely reasonable, and I am happy to respond to them.

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 am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who will, I hope, see his work as Chair of the Select Committee reflected in this announcement—specifically, that we are setting the target to issue initial offers to 90% of claims within 40 working days of receiving a full claim. On the point of how that is defined, a full claim is one where, following legal assessment, it is deemed that it does not require any further evidence to assess the claim further. Once that is in, the targets, which his Select Committee rightly called for to make sure redress is delivered at speed, are part of this process.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that question. Specifically on the figures for the Horizon convictions redress scheme, he is right to say that there are only six claims where interim payments have been made so far, but I can assure him that I would expect that to rise rapidly following the announcement we have made, and I will keep the House informed as to all of that. I agree when he says that redress of this scandal has to link to the future of the Post Office itself. I think he is absolutely right. I mentioned in oral questions last week that I will appear before the inquiry. It is about not just an assurance on the lessons that will be learnt from the inquiry, but how that will affect decisions going forward.

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.

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and recognise her contribution on this issue over many years. She is right to say that the appeals process I am announcing today will be run in-house by the Department for Business and Trade. Obviously, information will need to be provided by the Post Office, but an in-house scheme will be delivered. On redress, we are all following Sir Wyn William’s inquiry closely. We will need that to conclude and essential information will come out of it. After that, there will need to be a way to ensure that those findings, whatever they may be, are honoured in full and that we learn from them. In a number of cases, there is a need to hold people to account for their actions throughout the scandal.

I recognise very much what the right hon. Member is saying. I have had personal friends who were directly affected by this issue. Even though I was their MP as well as their friend, they did not feel able to tell me about it because they were so concerned about the impact on their reputation—they could not even tell a friend who was a Member of Parliament, even though the issue was clearly affecting their lives very significantly. I am sure that, like me, she has had situations where there is one provider of postal services in a relatively rural area—I represent Greater Manchester as it gets out towards rural Derbyshire—and people want the service to continue, but for various business reasons the provider is moving on. It is sometimes hard to find someone willing to take that business on, not just because of the scandal, but because of the business model. I assure her that the work we are already doing is about the future and recognising that, and making sure we have people in charge who recognise that that has to change. It is going to be a substantial piece of work for me and the Minister, but it is essential. We could not just provide redress for this scandal, without looking to the future and making sure we get this right.

As I have said in previous answers, we have to understand that that scepticism and concern is valid. The scale of this scandal is so large that people will challenge their Members of Parliament on how they feel about what they may be asked to do, and the risk that that poses to what is still an essential business and provider of services to all our constituents. That is key. I seek to reassure them by recognising the steps and commitment that we have to address, but also the future of a business model that delivers the kind of remuneration and operates in a way that recognises the scale of the failure in the past. If I was a postmaster, I would welcome those words, but I would want to see action. That is the only way we will be able to do that.

I very much echo the hon. Lady’s point that, if there is one bit where our political system operated well in this, it is the constituency link and the classic Member of Parliament’s surgery, although the story as a whole is clearly unsatisfactory. I recognise her words on Lord Arbuthnot and the cross-party campaign that came about. The Ministry of Justice issue is paramount and frustrating. The state of the records has delayed the process, and that is a real frustration, but she will understand that, following so much failure, if a case emerged where a letter was sent out incorrectly after all that people have been through, that would clearly be outrageous. Given I am now accountable for the scheme, I absolutely cannot have that. I could talk about some of the things we have inherited, but I do not think that is particularly helpful. I will simply give the hon. Lady the assurance that she rightly seeks: this issue is of maximum importance and we are working at pace with Ministry of Justice colleagues and the devolved authorities in relation to justice systems around the United Kingdom.

I think my hon. Friend will have heard in my earlier answers that we have chosen to deliver this scheme in-house in the Department for Business and Trade, reflecting the concerns he is reasonably expressing. To command people’s confidence, they want to see the schemes not only set up, but delivering. That is why the updates to the House on how we are progressing under each scheme are so important, and I commit to doing them regularly.

The hon. Gentleman will have heard my answers. He would surely agree that to get things wrong with these cases would be a terrible problem. Some of the errors and the problems that have been caused have been a frustration, but I want to assure him. I think it is better, in matters relating to this scandal, that it is the Department for Business and Trade, given the interests of Members, that provides the updates on these matters. However, I can assure him that work is proceeding at pace, and people can proactively register their credentials to ensure that there is no delay if they are in a position where they know they are one of the wronged parties.

I very much recognise the conversation that my hon. Friend has had with her constituent, and her need and desire to progress that claim. The issue is about ensuring that the records are accurate. Cross-referencing between Ministry of Justice databases and court documents is proceeding apace. If her constituent has not yet had a letter and needs to register their credentials, they can do so, but I assure my hon. Friend that this is of maximum priority.

I echo the hon. Gentleman’s comments about Marion Fellows and her contribution to the scheme. He asks how satisfied I am. I will not be satisfied until everyone has had redress; it is as straightforward as that. There was a group of about 2,417 claimants under the Horizon shortfall scheme, but following the television drama, a whole range of people who were not aware that they were eligible came forward, which was incredibly positive. I think that over 1,500 people came forward. Indeed, Members may still be finding people who are coming forward because of the awareness that raised. We should be thankful for the power of the arts to get a message out to people. Given the situation, none of us can be satisfied until we can be sure that we have got redress to everyone. That is what this Parliament collectively has to commit to.

Members may know that Capture was the precursor to the Horizon software. It is of concern to us, and we are investigating. The forensic accountants appointed to look into the issue are due to report fairly soon, and as soon as we have their findings, we will be able to update the House on steps that may be necessary.

I thought that the hon. Member might recognise the words from Isiah that I used in the statement. The failure that goes to the heart of what we are talking about today is not just about the reliance on computer systems over the testimony of people on the frontline; it is also about the culture of organisations and how government operates. We will definitely turn a page on all of that, but there are Members in the Chamber who, like me, have been here not just for infected blood and the Grenfell statement last week, but for Hillsborough and Bloody Sunday.

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.

I understand the situation, and the need to have different redress schemes to correct specific problems. I understand the constituent’s sentiments, as described by my hon. Friend. I would like to make sure that we are doing everything we can to provide the answers in every case. If she writes to me about that case, I will look into it personally and advise her, so that she can advise her constituent to make sure that, as far as possible, we give the right advice.

I very much agree. This is a major scandal, and we must ensure that the wider lessons and the wider lack of trust, which he correctly mentioned, are addressed in our response. That is fundamental. I have said many times that we might never have discovered the scale of this injustice were it not for the campaigners. That is shocking, and we must all reflect very deeply on that.

I recognise very much what my hon. Friend says. As I said in my earlier answers, there is an absolute need to not just provide redress but learn lessons for the future of the Post Office and all institutions of the state. Crucially, we must ensure that a business model is in place that rewards postmasters with a decent return for providing an essential service, in an organisation that supports their frontline activities and gives them the income and the prosperity that they deserve for that.

People are aware that it is fairly challenging to have a situation in which justice is devolved across the United Kingdom. At times that has very much affected the debate in this House. I believe that what the hon. Gentleman says is the case, but I will write to him about the Northern Irish situation to give him the information that he needs.

I agree with the hon. Member. That is a crucial and important question. I welcome Fujitsu acknowledging its moral responsibility in relation to these matters. I understand that it is participating fully with the Sir Wyn Williams inquiry. We will need that inquiry to conclude. We should not pre-empt that in any way and take any decisions before that process has been gone through properly, given that we all support it. Accountability will flow from the inquiry. It will be an important step and it will affect many, many organisations that have been part of this story. Fujitsu will clearly be one of them.