Horizon: Compensation and Convictions

Before I call the Minister, I will make a short statement about the House’s sub judice resolution. There are relevant active legal proceedings relating to Horizon before the courts. In December 2022, Mr Speaker exercised his discretion in respect of matters sub judice to allow references to those proceedings, as they concern issues of national importance. That waiver is ongoing. However, I urge hon. Members to exercise caution in what they say, and to avoid referring in detail to cases that remain before the courts.

The Post Office scandal is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history, shaking people’s faith in the principles of equity and fairness that form the core pillars of our legal system. I am very pleased that last week’s excellent ITV drama “Mr Bates vs The Post Office” has brought an understanding of the Horizon scandal to a much broader audience. I have received much correspondence about the scandal and the emotional impact that the dramatisation has had. Those of us who have been campaigning and working on the issue for some years were already well aware of what happened.

I pay particular tribute to Alan Bates and his fellow postmasters, including Jo Hamilton and Lee Castleton, to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis), my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan), the hon. Members for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), to Lord Arbuthnot and other members of the Horizon compensation advisory board, and of course to key figures in the media. They played a key role in seeking justice and compensation for the victims. I also thank the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), for his continually constructive approach, as well as my ministerial predecessors, including my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully).

Watching last week’s ITV programme has only reinforced our zeal for seeing justice done as quickly as possible. We are already a long way down that road. Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry is doing great work in exposing what went wrong and who was responsible. Full and final compensation has already been paid to 64% of those people affected. I have previously said to the House that my main concern now is regarding those still waiting for full and final compensation, and the slow pace at which criminal convictions related to Horizon are being overturned by the courts. Before Christmas, the advisory board published a letter that underlined exactly that.

This is not just a matter of getting justice for those wrongly convicted. Overturning their convictions is also key to unlocking compensation. Each person whose Horizon conviction is overturned is entitled to an interim compensation payment of £163,000. They can then choose whether to have their compensation individually assessed or to accept an up-front offer of £600,000. That offer is already speeding along compensation for a significant number of people.

In the light of the advisory board’s letter about overturning convictions, I have spoken to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and to Lord Arbuthnot. I have also had a very positive meeting this afternoon with my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. All of us in the House are united in our desire to see justice done, and we have devised some options for resolving the outstanding criminal convictions at much greater pace. The Lord Chancellor will, rightly, need to speak to senior figures in the judiciary about those options before we put them forward, but I am confident that we should be able to implement measures that address the concerns expressed by the advisory board. I hope that the Government will be able to announce those proposals to the House very shortly.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for the advance copy of his statement.

The Horizon Post Office failure is a scandal to which we have been responding for some time, but I welcome the way the recent ITV drama has brought the story to a wider audience. It is a powerful reminder of the way that art and culture can be used to tackle injustice and to raise public awareness. I also pay tribute, as I have before, to the sub-postmasters, to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), to Lord Arbuthnot and to all those Members whose work has been integral in the progress to date to get justice.

A lot has been done but, as we all know, there is a lot more to do, because the Horizon scandal is quite simply one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in British history—something that robbed people of their lives, their liberty and their livelihoods. Driven by the misguided belief that technology was infallible and workers dishonest, the Post Office prosecuted innocent people, causing unimaginable pain and suffering, which no amount of compensation can ever alleviate. To add insult to injury, the journey to justice for those sub-postmasters has been mired in a great many delays and barriers, and some of the people affected have, tragically, passed away before having the chance to see justice.

I recognise the attention that the Minister has given this matter, including by responding positively to the campaign to ensure that compensation payments are not subject to taxation. However, it is still an urgent priority to get compensation to all those affected, and it is unconscionable that convictions still remain, where it is clear that no wrongdoing has been committed. Justice must be served for those workers and their families, which is why Labour has called for all sub-postmasters to be exonerated in full. I listened carefully to what the Minister had to say about that, and I extend our support for any actions that may be required to overturn these convictions as quickly as possible, while ensuring that no victim has to re-enter litigation and relive the trauma they have experienced. I appreciate the Minister’s acknowledgment that the public want to know that that will happen as soon as possible. I also welcome the review he announced into private prosecutions, because the public want assurance that nothing like this can ever be allowed to happen again.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words and support, and for the manner in which he delivered his response to the statement. We share an ambition to see exoneration, and I am very happy to work with him over the next few days to make sure that we are getting to the right place.

He raises a very important point about people who were involved in a pilot scheme for Horizon—an issue that has also been raised by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). We want to make sure that every single victim is properly covered by the various schemes, and I have asked everybody who has evidence of any kind, including the right hon. Member for North Durham, to furnish me with the details. I will make sure that we pick up anybody who is left outside the schemes.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) mentioned Fujitsu, and I concur with his points. Anybody who is shown to be responsible for this scandal should be held accountable, including by making payments into the taxpayer’s fund. I accept what he says about the honours system, as I have said before on a number of occasions. I speak as a former CEO. This is not to direct responsibility for any specific thing that happened—the Sir Wyn Williams inquiry is there to identify responsibility—but, as a former CEO, I would say that it is perfectly reasonable to ask the CEO who oversaw the Post Office during a critical time, when things went so badly wrong, to voluntarily hand back their honour. However, that is a matter for the person concerned.

I call the Father of the House.

I refer my hon. Friend the Minister to the article in The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice by M. R. McGuire and K. Renaud, entitled “Harm, injustice & technology: Reflections on the UK’s subpostmasters’ case”.

First, page 444 shows the graph of the prosecutions, which rose from 10 in 1997 to nearly 80 in 2001. The people responsible should have noticed that we were not going to get ordinary, decent people—sub-postmistresses and sub-postmasters—suddenly going crooked on that scale. Secondly, the article talks about the bugs that were named after the sub-post offices where they were discovered: the Dalmellington bug and the Callendar Square bug.

I also refer my hon. Friend the Minister to the article in The Sun about my constituent Cheryl Shaw, who gave up in 2008. Having lost £400 week after week, she brought in the Post Office investigators, who claimed that they could not find anything to explain what was happening. She had to sell out, she lost her home and she took on work as a carer. She is illustrative of those who were convicted and those who gave up before they were prosecuted.

Many people now believe that the Horizon system was set up for one purpose and adapted to another, for which it did not work. When people started entering things twice, there was apparently a loss where the Post Office did not actually lose any money. If the Post Office did not lose any money, how could people have been properly prosecuted? The titanic error was the belief in technology.

I thank my hon. Friend for his questions. I totally agree that people should be held responsible where, following an inquiry and investigation, they are shown to have wilfully neglected their duties. He raises an important point about the courts’ attitude towards computer and technology-based evidence. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor is looking at that issue too, it having been brought to his attention by Paul Marshall, one of the leading barristers involved in this scandal.

I am sorry to hear about my hon. Friend’s constituent, Mrs Shaw. I take it that she will have applied to the Horizon shortfall scheme, which should compensate people like her. If my hon. Friend would like any help or assistance to make sure that has happened, either for himself or for Mrs Shaw, I am very happy to provide it.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you were in the Chair when we last discussed the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill on 19 December. I do not think any of us who knew about the TV drama would have believed the impact it has had. It is bittersweet that it is had such an effect. It is really telling that MPs, peers, the media and many others tried to bring this issue into the public consciousness, but none of us managed to do so as effectively as a TV drama.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Today I have been contacted by local sub-postmasters who want to meet me. They were never prosecuted, but they had shortfalls and paid money back to the Post Office. Many of them just walked away and retired, and they now have no evidence of what happened. When a sub-postmaster walks away from a post office, all the financial documentation goes back to Post Office Ltd. Can we have a thought on that, Minister?

Will the Minister confirm that all the money that went back to Post Office Ltd enhanced the profits on which, over the years, many bonuses were paid to Post Office executives? Will pressure be put on those people to repay those bonuses? I disagree with very little of the Minister’s statement, and I think there is consensus across the Chamber on this, but some words sprang out at me: “very shortly” and “in due course”. Can we please have fixed timelines for the reports?

I commend Sir Wyn Williams, whom I first met when he took on the inquiry before it became statutory. It sounds ridiculous for me to say that I was impressed by him, but I really understood that he was going to get to the bottom of what happened. He has done that in spite of grievous failures on behalf of Post Office Ltd.

There must be accountability for everyone in Post Office Ltd and Fujitsu who prosecuted and persecuted sub-postmasters over the years. I pledge that SNP Members will continue to put pressure on Governments of any colour to keep the momentum going to ensure that real justice is served, even if that involves more pressure on the former CEO and on the people who received honours because of their work for Post Office Ltd. [Interruption.] I see the Minister nodding and know he agrees with me.

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions and, indeed, for her work on the all-party group on post offices. In terms of the case she raises of the postmasters who have suffered financially and in which there will be difficulty in providing information because of lack of evidence, the benefit of the doubt should clearly be with the postmasters in this situation. The Horizon shortfall scheme is there to compensate people in that situation. If she needs any help with any of those cases I am very happy to assist.

On whether people repay bonuses or whatever else people might be held accountable for, in order to be fair we should wait for the results of the inquiry. We believe in process in this House and it is right that people have a right to reply and give their own evidence. I agree with the hon. Lady’s confidence in Sir Wyn Williams, who is doing a tremendous job.

I am sorry that I cannot be more precise on the timescales, but I will be very disappointed if we go past the end of this week without giving more information to the House. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady about the accountability of individuals both for all reasons of justice and to act as a deterrent to anybody else who is ever tempted to do the wrong thing in such circumstances. These corporate failures and corporate abuses cannot continue and we need to make sure people realise that if it happens, they will be held to account.

I congratulate the Minister and his immediate predecessor for the sterling work they have done in attempting to bring justice to this problem. However, the Government need to do four things: to stop the Post Office unnecessarily challenging the victims’ appeals and find a more rapid method to exonerate all the innocent victims; to instruct the Post Office to stop hiring expensive lawyers to challenge the compensation claims and therefore to accelerate the payment mechanism; to strip away the Post Office’s right to police its own cases; and to accelerate the investigatory procedures prior to criminal prosecutions of the real villains in this case—we know who they are. Does the Minister believe that he can achieve those four aims in months rather than years?

I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind words and for all his work in the campaign for justice for postmasters. I also congratulate him on his recent knighthood; the whole of Yorkshire was rejoicing at his award.

I can assure my right hon. Friend on all four counts. Yes, we want a more rapid means of overturning convictions. Yes, we want to make sure that the Post Office does not challenge unfairly any attempt to overturn those convictions. Yes, too, on making sure that the investigatory process happens more quickly. Of course, some of these matters are outside our control, as he is fully aware, because of the separation of powers, but in terms of the policing of cases I am happy to talk to him after this statement about what precisely he means by that. There is an independent element to the way all the compensation schemes are running. They are not being policed or restricted by the Post Office; there are independent panels and independent assessments as part of all those processes, but I am happy to talk to my right hon. Friend in detail about what we can do in those areas.

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

Justice delayed is justice denied but 85% of the convictions have still not been overturned despite the Select Committee warning last spring that the process was rolling much too slowly and having made recommendations for speeding it up. Many of those recommendations were rejected, yet tonight the Minister has told the House that only now is the Lord Chancellor exploring with the judiciary a way to speed things up. Will the Minister tell us tonight his timeframe for delivering justice to those who have been unfairly convicted? Can those who are still waiting for their convictions to be overturned expect justice to be done this year? Or must they wait until many more of them have, tragically, passed away without justice?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his work as Chair of the Select Committee, and I am very happy to be appearing before it next week to answer more detailed questions on these matters. He is right to say that most convictions have not come forward, which is precisely why we are making this statement today—so that more people with convictions have them overturned. One difficulty is that some of them have not come forward. Also, about 50 people who have come forward have not had their convictions overturned. We are looking at both those particular issues and I am happy to talk to the right hon. Gentleman about any of his recommendations.

Yes, we absolutely want to see these issues resolved this year. As we have said before, we want to see all compensation payments done by August, which was the original timeframe. Not all these matters are within our gift: we require victims and their representatives to bring forward claims and, in the current process, those seeking to overturn convictions to bring forward applications for that. That is a process that we are trying to expedite, and I hope to have some very good news for the right hon. Gentleman in the coming days.

As one who for all too many years has urged faster compensation and redress for those who have suffered in this scandal, I welcome the new sense of urgency and united purpose across the Floor of the House. When my hon. Friend is looking at the Post Office’s right to bring private prosecutions, will he understand that it was the fact that it was 100% Government owned and accountable through this House to the Government that gave it so much more seriousness and weight against the innocent who were trying to defend themselves?