Post Office must be 'taken out' of role in Horizon IT scandal redress schemes

More than 900 sub-postmasters were given criminal convictions after faulty Fujitsu accounting software made it appear as though money was missing from their shops.

Many more were left destitute, losing their homes and livelihoods, as the Post Office relentlessly pursued them, continually claiming there were no issues with its computer system.

Janet Skinner, who ran a Post Office in Hull, lost her job, her house and her reputation when she was jailed for supposedly missing £59,000. Her conviction, described as an “affront to justice”, has since been quashed.

The scandal has been described as the UK’s “biggest miscarriage of justice”, and burst into the public consciousness with the ITV drama called Mr Bates vs the Post Office starring Toby Jones.

In a report published today, one year to the day since the TV show first aired, the Committee said although there had been improvements, redress schemes were still “poorly designed” and payment was still “not fast enough”.

Committee chairman Mr Byrne said: “The fault lies with the Post Office but ultimately Government is the shareholder in the Post Office and acts on our behalf.

“And so the first thing that needs to happen is we need clear, regular monthly statements from the Post Office about how much they’re actually spending on lawyers, because it’s incredibly difficult for us to extract the information, and Parliament, frankly, has got the right to know, and so does the public.

“And I think creating some of that transparency would also just create an incentive for the Post Office to actually get a grip.

“But then what you need from ministers is really clear instructions to use best endeavours to get the cases settled quickly, because if the lawyers don’t have a budget that they’re having to work with, then it’s obviously in their interest to string the cases out and that would appear to us to be what’s going on.”

So far, legal firm Herbert Smith Freehills has received £82 million in fees for work on the HSS and overturned convictions schemes, the Post Office told the committee in December.

It said that legal fees have made up £136m of the cost of administering the Post Office-led schemes since 2020 – 27 per cent of the actual compensation paid out.

Mr Byrne added: “The legal bill appears to be racking up all the time, so the whole thing is just, frankly, out of control.

“And when you’ve got so much being paid to lawyers and so little being paid to victims, then there’s only one conclusion you can draw, which is that the system isn’t working and it needs to change.”

In Wednesday’s report, the committee repeated its call for the Post Office to be removed from its role in the redress schemes, something the company has previously said it would have no objection to.

The previous government also rejected that recommendation, saying designing a new scheme would “take months and cost millions which should instead be spent on redress for postmasters”.

But Post Office minister Gareth Thomas indicated earlier in December that the new Government was considering taking over responsibility for the schemes from the company.

The Labour Government has set aside £1.8 billion at the Budget in October to fully fund the redress schemes, but has so far declined to set a deadline for settling the claims.

Mr Byrne added: “We can’t go on like this. Justice delayed is justice denied. So today, we’re setting out a practical, common sense plan to reboot the redress system.”

A Government spokesman said: “Since entering government, we have worked tirelessly to speed up the process of providing the victims of the Horizon scandal with full and fair redress, including by launching the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme earlier this year.

“We are settling claims at a faster rate than ever before, with the amount of redress paid doubling since July, with almost £500 million being paid to over 3,300 claimants as of the end of November. We will respond to the Committee’s report in due course.”

A Post Office spokesperson added: “Working alongside government, we are focused on paying redress as swiftly as possible.”