Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill
Wednesday 20th March 2024
(9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am pleased to present the Bill for its Second Reading. It will quash the convictions of those affected by the Post Office Horizon scandal in England and Wales—one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history. The legislation will clear the names of sub-postmasters whose lives were ruined because of the Horizon scandal: those wrongly convicted of or cautioned for offences of false accounting, theft and fraud, all because of a faulty IT system that the Post Office had implemented.
Instead of listening to whistleblowers such as Alan Bates when they raised concerns, the Post Office viciously pursued them for the shortfalls. Some were suspended or dismissed; hundreds were prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned; others were harried as thieves by their local communities. Several were driven to suicide. The Government cannot turn back the clock or undo the damage that has been done, but we will seek to right the wrongs of the past as best we can by restoring people’s good names and ensuring that those who have been subject to this tragic miscarriage of justice receive fair and full redress. The Bill represents a crucial step in delivering that.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The whole House appreciates the efforts that the Government are making to rectify this problem at last, but I appeal to them to listen to the cross-party representations made from both sides in this House and all sides in Northern Ireland, including by the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the Justice Minister for Northern Ireland, who have appealed for the fewer than 30 people in Northern Ireland who have been affected by the scandal to be included in the Bill.
Kemi Badenoch
We are working closely with the Northern Ireland Executive. We have carefully considered the territorial extent of each piece of legislation, and we are rigorous in our commitment to devolution. The hon. Gentleman should be assured of the amount of work that is taking place to ensure that we get the Bill done properly in a way that will not have unintended consequences. I thank him for that point.
This new legislation will quash all convictions that meet the clear and objective conditions laid out in it. We recognise that postmasters have suffered too much for far too long, which is why convictions will be quashed automatically when the Bill receives Royal Assent, removing the need for people to apply to have their conviction overturned.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I understand entirely why the Bill is necessary. She will agree that it is important that we do not, through the Bill, set any precedent for the interference of this House in individual convictions, unless there are exceptional circumstances such as these. That means that the Bill must be tightly drafted. At the moment, condition E—the last of the conditions that she has mentioned—is that
“at the time of the alleged offence, the Horizon system was being used for the purposes of the post office business.”
Why is that not phrased differently to say that Horizon-based evidence was presented in the case against the person convicted? There is a material difference between those two things. I just seek to understand why she has chosen that formulation rather than the alternative.
Kemi Badenoch
My right hon. and learned Friend makes a good point about the final condition in the Bill. That is something that we considered, but it would likely have required a case-by-case, file-by-file assessment of each prosecution. That would have added significant time and complexity, which is what our solution avoids. One thing that I have been keen to emphasise is that speed and pace are critical. This has taken far longer than I would have wanted, and I would not have gone for a solution that would have impeded this and created complications.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I put on the record my thanks to and commendations for the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), for the way in which he has approached the groundwork for the Bill.
Among those excluded from the scope of the Bill are those who went to the Court of Appeal and lost their case, or were not given leave to appeal to the Court. What we now know would have been quite useful in many of those cases. Should we enlarge the scope of the Bill to include those who lost their case at the Court of Appeal or were not given leave to appeal in the first place, as many of them may well be truly innocent?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point. That is also something that we considered carefully. It is part of the trade-off that we had to make in doing something unprecedented: Parliament overturning convictions. We respect the judgment of the Court of Appeal—it has gone to an appellate judge. We are willing to consider some of those cases individually just to ensure that nothing has been missed, but the Bill has been drafted in consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service and the judiciary. We want to ensure that we are bringing everyone with us. Concerns such as his have been raised, but this is more or less the consensus that we think will get the Bill done, and allow redress, as quickly as possible.
Sir David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I will elaborate on this point further when I speak—hopefully, if I catch Mr Deputy Speaker’s eye—but there is already data about the cases that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) referred to, those that are outside the Horizon case itself but were attempting to get themselves exonerated on the basis of other data. As far as I can see, they failed precisely because they were not part of the Horizon case, so I ask the Secretary of State to return to this issue before Report and look at whether we can solve that problem.
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. That is something we can look at again at further stages of the Bill. We understand the issue that hon. Members are trying to resolve, and agree with them that we need to make sure that everybody who deserves justice gets justice, but we also have to be careful to make sure that we are not exonerating people who we know for a fact have committed crimes.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I commend her work and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), not only in recognising the plight of these people and putting in place compensation for their suffering, but in ensuring that these criminal convictions are expunged from their record. It is really important for these people that they regain their standing within their communities.
As my right hon. Friend has rightly said, so many of these whistleblowers were failed by the current law: the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. It is really vital that we not only put that right, but have a good look at the law again. I know that a framework review is going on, and have spoken to my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend about what more can be done. I have tabled a whistleblowing Bill that will sort this problem out. It lands within the Department for Business and Trade—it is something that is within my right hon. Friend’s gift. Will she support my private Member’s Bill on Friday?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my hon. Friend for all the work she does in chairing the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing. She is right that this issue needs consideration, and we are going to look again at the whistleblowing framework—it is something that comes up time and time again in many respects. I will not comment yet on her private Member’s Bill, because I have not seen it, but I thank her for all her work on this issue.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I welcome this Bill. I know that it is groundbreaking and possibly sets some nerves off with the judiciary, but I think the judiciary need to look at themselves and how they have dealt with some of these cases.
On the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) raised, a small number of cases are not within the scope of the Bill. I perfectly understand why, but we have to get those cases looked at again, because evidence has come out in the Sir Wyn Williams inquiry that was not available at the time. Will the Secretary of State commit to at least sit down with the judiciary to look at these cases and emphasise the fact that there is new information, and that responsibility for some of this injustice has got to lie with the justice system?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The courts dealt very swiftly with the cases before them—perhaps a bit too swiftly. That is why the sub-postmasters suffered so many miscarriages of justice, and it is right that we make their exoneration as simple and quick as possible, so while my priority is passing this Bill for the bulk of the people who have suffered, that does not mean we will not be able to look at other scenarios later and see if we can find solutions where we genuinely believe that there has been a miscarriage of justice. That is not for me to do at the Dispatch Box—it will not be up to Ministers. There will be caseworkers who will carry out that work, but we have to be careful to make sure that we are exonerating the right cohort.
Mr Jones
I hear what the Secretary of State says, but I would just say to her that this is a small number of people and they have to be looked at. Can I ask that she shows the same zeal that her hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) has shown in his approach to this process? We need a commitment, not to get these cases sorted today—I accept that the Secretary of State cannot do that—but that the Department will look at them. I think that will send quite a strong message out to people.
Kemi Badenoch
The Department can always do that. This is something that we believe is so critical in order to make sure everybody gets the justice they deserve, and we need to make sure that we carry out the process in such a way that everyone has confidence in it. We can continue to look at cases and see if there are other solutions, but as the right hon. Gentleman has rightly said, that will be outside the scope of this Bill.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, and I also pay tribute to the exceptional work of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and the way in which he has engaged in what is a sensitive issue, not least constitutionally. Does my right hon. Friend accept that it is not ideal under any circumstance for this House to trespass upon the legitimate preserves of the independent courts? It should only do so under the most exceptional circumstances. There is a case that this is one of those instances, but while we can legitimately criticise failings in the criminal justice system—such as in disclosure, which is part of the system—it is important that we do not get into the territory of impugning the individual decisions of judges made in good faith on the evidence properly before them.
One thing we could do to emphasise the exceptional nature of the Bill would be to introduce a sunset clause, so that at an appropriate time when the Bill has served its purpose—perhaps some way in the future, once those who need to be found and contacted have been able to come forward and have their convictions quashed— it would no longer be the constitutional anomaly that it might otherwise be if it stayed on the statute book indefinitely.
Kemi Badenoch
I am very happy to consider a sunset clause. My hon. and learned Friend makes a very good point, and I really appreciate the fact that he can see the tightrope that we are walking: getting justice for postmasters while not interfering with judicial independence.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I think it is important that we emphasise the wholly exceptional nature of this legislation, but we are dealing with wholly exceptional circumstances—we hope. The point about disclosure is one that I cannot make strongly enough, and we have to look again at our presumptions about machines and what they produce when it comes to criminal litigation.
Can I press my right hon. Friend to reiterate the wholly exceptional nature of this legislation? I think we need to be careful when it comes to a sunset clause, because we do not want to end up frustrating the purpose of the Bill, which is to deal with the hundreds of people who have lost faith in the system and might be difficult to track down and identify. I am not particularly in favour of a sunset clause, but we do need to emphasise the exceptional nature of this legislation.
Kemi Badenoch
I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his intervention. I am very happy to emphasise that, and will do so again later in my speech. I do enjoy it when we have two lawyers who disagree on a particular point; I will be taking this as their application to join the Bill Committee.
The Bill includes a duty on the Government to take all reasonable steps to identify convictions that have been quashed. It also creates a duty to notify the original convicting court, so that records can be updated and people’s good names can be restored. Other records, such as police records, will be amended in response. The Bill makes provision for records of cautions for relevant offences relating to this scandal to be deleted. While the financial redress scheme will be open to applicants throughout the UK, the Bill’s measures to overturn convictions will apply to England and Wales only.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
We on the Business and Trade Select Committee heard absolutely harrowing accounts from postmasters of what they had gone through as a consequence of the Post Office’s actions, but many of those cases took place many years ago. Can the Secretary of State be confident that the audit process in an organisation such as the Post Office will in future identify what has happened at an earlier stage, and does she agree that legislation such as this should never come before this House again—that this should not happen?
Kemi Badenoch
I believe that the inquiry being led by Sir Wyn Williams is currently looking at that issue. It is important that audit processes work at the highest level, and that people are able to rely on and have confidence in them, so I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point.
On the question of territorial coverage, as I said earlier to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), my Department will continue working closely with the Northern Ireland Executive and the Scottish Government to support their approaches to addressing this scandal, ensuring that every postmaster who has been affected receives the justice they deserve, irrespective of where in the United Kingdom they are. Indeed, my colleague and hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), the Minister for postal affairs, has already met Justice Ministers in the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to offer our support.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
I accept that the Department is very keen to respect the devolved settlements in both Northern Ireland and Scotland, but can I stress to the Secretary of State that there is political consensus in Northern Ireland, and Ministers in the newly restored Executive would welcome Parliament acting in this particular area?
Due to the nature of devolution in Northern Ireland, we have to have a public consultation, so in the best-case scenario we are looking at well towards the end of this year before we can replicate legislation here in Westminster. As this was a national scandal, it does require a national solution to avoid a situation of inequity in which some postmasters in parts of the UK are exonerated while others are still waiting.
Kemi Badenoch
I take the point the hon. Member makes very seriously. We do understand, but we want to make sure that we do not create any possible unintended consequences by legislating on devolved issues, so we are working hand in glove with the Northern Ireland Executive to make sure this goes through as quickly as possible. We know that the numbers there are much smaller, and that the postmasters there have been identified. He is right to raise the point, but I want to reassure him that we have every confidence that we will be able to get this done at the same pace.
Liam Byrne
Could I put that question in a slightly different way? The Minister for postal affairs has set out an ambitious timetable for the passage of this law, the overturning of convictions and the dispensation of compensation, with it all possibly being done and dusted—with hope, and a following wind—by the end of July. Could the Secretary of State commit to a similar timetable when it comes to the cases that have been raised in Northern Ireland?
Kemi Badenoch
That is certainly something we can encourage the Executive to work to, but I cannot personally make that commitment because it would not solely be up to me. However, I just want to reassure the House that this is something we care about. We are not prioritising England and Wales because it is England and Wales; we are doing what we can as quickly as we possibly can to make sure that we do not create problems later by rushing and not doing things properly. I think that that is a good and ambitious target, but it would not be up to me to make such a commitment.
I am aware that the approach we are taking in this Bill is a novel one. With it, Parliament is taking a function usually reserved for the independent judiciary, as my right hon. and learned Friends the Members for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) and for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) have said. However, I am equally aware that the postmasters’ long and punishing fight for justice must now be swiftly drawn to a close. The circumstances surrounding the scandal are wholly exceptional, and they demand an exceptional response from Government, so I would like to take this opportunity to reassure the House that the introduction of the Bill is in no way a reflection on the courts and the judiciary, which have dealt swiftly with the cases before them.
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
I would like to commend both the Secretary of State and her team for bringing forward this Bill. The sub-postmasters have faced a miscarriage of justice that has taken many people’s breath away. I am aware that this is specific and focused legislation, but two South Ribble constituents came to see me who had been Royal Mail customers, and they described scenarios of prosecutorial practice very similar to what sub-postmasters were subject to. Would the Secretary of State consider expanding the scope of the legislation in future to other people who may have been subject to poor treatment?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I can look specifically at the cases she raises, but I think they may actually be covered by this Bill. I would be wary of expanding the scope too broadly. The consensus we have with the CPS, the judiciary and so on has been achieved by the legislation being very tightly scoped, but we do want to make sure that people who have been at the end of an injustice can have those wrongs righted. I am very happy to look at the specific cases of her constituents.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I am very clear that this Bill is about correcting convictions that were made in error. However, there are of course a number of employees—direct employees—of the Post Office who were never convicted, but had their good name ruined and their careers destroyed, and have found it very difficult to gain employment because they were unable to get references from their previous employer. Indeed, probably the worst thing that happened to them is that they were identified in their community as people who were perhaps stealing from pensioners or treating members of their community unfairly. This Bill will do nothing for them. Could the Secretary of State outline what the Post Office is doing to contact those individuals who were disciplined by the Post Office and dismissed, so that they too can have justice?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is right that many people had their reputations traduced because of what happened with the Horizon scandal. Where shortfalls were falsely made by the Post Office and they had to pay, we have compensation schemes to address those sorts of wrongs. Because this Bill is specifically about overturning convictions, it cannot apply to them, but where they have suffered other damage, we have compensation schemes that we hope will apply in those circumstances.
We have not taken the decision to legislate in this way lightly. Given the factually exceptional circumstances of the Horizon scandal, the number of postmasters involved and the passage of time since the original convictions, it is right that the state now acts as quickly as possible. Any further delay would be adding further insult to injury for postmasters who have already endured what I believe is an arduous wait. Indeed, some have lost trust in the system, and want no further engagement. In many cases, the evidence they would need to clear their names no longer exists.
However, I must make two points clear to the House. First, the Government’s position is that it will be Parliament, not the Government, that is overturning the convictions, so there will be no intrusion by the Executive into the proper role of the judiciary. Secondly, this legislation does not set any kind of precedent for the future. It recognises that an extraordinary response has been necessitated by an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.
On this Bill receiving Royal Assent, no further action is required by the victims of this scandal to have their convictions quashed. The Government will take all reasonable steps to notify the relevant individuals and direct them to the route for applying for compensation. Further details of this process will be set out in due course.
Liam Byrne
The Secretary of State is being characteristically generous in giving way again. The evidence the Select Committee heard was that many people seeking compensation for the injustice they have suffered found it very complicated and very confusing to understand the range of case law required to put in particular kinds of claim—for example, for loss of reputation. When she triggers the notification provisions, would she reflect on something she could add, which is a tariff to help people put in claims for the right kind of compensation? What none of us would want to do, having overturned the convictions, is to let people get short-changed on the compensation. Providing a standardised tariff could cut through so much of the complexity and help people get what they are due.
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I know that is a recommendation from his report, and it is something we are actively looking at and considering. As the Bill progresses through the House, there will be many suggestions that we will be able to look at to see whether it can be improved in any way. However, we must make sure that we do so in a way that does not jeopardise any of the objectives of the Bill—any of them at all.
As I was saying, further details will be set out in due course, and there will be a process for anyone to come forward where their convictions meet the criteria but we have been unable to identify them. The new primary legislation will be followed by a route to rapid financial redress on a basis similar to the overturned convictions scheme, which is currently administered by the Post Office, so we do not need provisions in the Bill to deliver that scheme. My Department, not the Post Office, will be responsible for the delivery of redress related to the quashing of these convictions. The Minister for postal affairs will return to the House at a later date to provide details on how we intend to deliver that redress.
Mr Kevan Jones
I welcome the changes that have been made in the compensation. Some of the proposals—for example, for fixed sums—are going to make a lot of cases easier to sort out. I do not feel comfortable having the Post Office anywhere near this, frankly, and neither do the sub-postmasters. Will the Secretary of State think about a system of compensation that in practice cuts out the Post Office? There is no trust there among the sub-postmasters. Do I personally have any faith in the Post Office? No, I do not.
Kemi Badenoch
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. That is one reason why my Department will be looking after the redress delivered by the scheme.
Sir David Davis
Let me reinforce the point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). There are people writing to me this week about the current handling of their cases by the Post Office and Post Office lawyers; frankly, it is barbaric. The Post Office needs to be taken out of it.
Kemi Badenoch
I reassure my right hon. Friend that this is something I am looking at in great detail. The Post Office has clearly been a dysfunctional organisation for a very long time, and that is one reason why I have been actively taking steps to look at the management and processes in place, which, as he rightly says, many of the sub-postmasters have lost faith in.
It goes without saying that work to offer prompt financial redress alongside the Bill continues. As of 1 March, 102 convictions have been overturned through the courts. Of those 102 cases, 45 people have claimed full and final redress, and of those 35 have reached settlement. The Post Office has paid out financial redress totalling £38 million to postmasters with overturned convictions. Under the Horizon shortfall scheme, as of 1 March, 2,864 eligible claims have been submitted, the vast majority of which have been settled by the Post Office, and £102 million has been paid out in financial redress, including full and final settlements and interim payments.
Finally, under the group litigation order scheme, working from the same date, 132 claims have been submitted, 110 have been settled by my Department, and £34 million has been paid out in financial redress, including full and final settlements and interim payments. Officials in my Department are working hard to get those cases settled quickly, and we have made offers within 40 working days in response to 87% of complete claims.
In summary, the Bill amounts to an exceptional response to a scandal that was wholly exceptional in nature, and has shaken the nation’s faith in the core principles of fairness that underpin our legal system. We recognise the constitutional sensitivity and unprecedented nature of the Bill, but I believe it is essential for us to rise to the scale of the challenge. The hundreds of postmasters caught up in this scandal deserve nothing less. Of course, no amount of legislation can fully restore what the Post Office so cruelly took from them, but I hope the Bill at least begins to offer the closure and justice that postmasters have so bravely campaigned for over many years, and that it affords them the ability to rebuild their lives. For that reason, I commend the Bill to the House.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I am pleased to be at the Dispatch Box to welcome the Bill; in doing so, I candidly recognise the difficult legal and constitutional position it represents. I will outline why I believe it is required, and the exceptional nature and caveats that we should all realise on Second Reading.
The Horizon scandal is, quite simply, one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in British history. It robbed people of their lives, their liberty and their livelihoods. As we now know, driven by a misguided belief that technology was infallible and workers dishonest, the Post Office prosecuted innocent people. Indeed, they were the very people in whom the Post Office should have had the most faith—those who delivered vital services in all our communities.
Those prosecutions caused unimaginable pain and suffering, which no amount of compensation can ever alleviate. To add insult to injury, the journey to justice for the sub-postmasters has been mired in a great many delays and barriers. Some of the people affected have, tragically, passed away before having had the chance to see justice.
The Bill will free hundreds of innocent people of their wrongful convictions, and it affords us the chance to make a huge stride in righting the wrongs of the past. That is why Labour will give it our support. However, this must be just one of several steps still to come if amends are ever to be made for this most insidious of injustices. The convictions must be overturned, compensation must be delivered at pace, and justice must be sought from the independent inquiry.
We must recognise today for what it is: a victory for the sub-postmasters. To have the strength of character to lose everything, and then to get back up and fight is truly humbling, and the recognition and admiration that those people have earned is absolutely right. Nevertheless, Members across the House will be acutely aware of the unprecedented nature of this legislative action. We all recognise that we should not have needed to get to this point, and it is important to explain why we are taking this step, why we believe this is an exceptional case, and why therefore this should never be repeated in future. I hope in this speech to do that.
I wish to recognise the work of the many people who have got us to this landmark occasion. First, no Member could deny that we would not be where we are today, pursuing this particular route, were it not for the recent ITV drama “Mr Bates vs the Post Office.” Although the Horizon Post Office failure is a scandal to which the House has been responding for some time, the drama brought the story to a wider audience and reinvigorated the campaign. It is a powerful reminder of the way that art and culture can be used to tackle injustice and raise public awareness. I thank everyone who was involved in that project, including my constituent Julie Hesmondhalgh.
Secondly, I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and Lord Arbuthnot in the other place, and all those colleagues who championed constituency cases from the beginning. Their tireless campaigning has been instrumental in getting us here to today.
Thirdly, I want to recognise the attention that the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), has given this matter and the progress he has achieved so far. I thank him for working cross-party on the design of this legislation, and for keeping me and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) regularly updated. I also note that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who is in his place, was the first to get to grips with this scandal in the way that was required. He will be leaving this place in the coming months, and I hope that will do so with a sense of pride in the work he did, and I thank him very much for it.
However, today must be a moment when, above all else, credit and recognition go to the sub-postmasters and their courageous search for justice. They have been unrelenting and undeterred, and we owe them a great deal. To be jailed or bankrupted because of faulty IT, and to have no one believe that their character mattered more than numbers on a spreadsheet, is why the scandal struck such a nerve with the public. Without the bravery of the sub-postmasters, we might never have known that this injustice took place—it is worth taking a moment to reflect on that.
The Bill will overturn 690 cases that were prosecuted by the Post Office and Crown Prosecution Service. We know it is a vital step in the course for justice for sub-postmasters, but we also recognise that doing so undermines a fundamental principle of our democracy: the separation of the judiciary and the legislature. Overruling the courts in this way could set an incredibly dangerous precedent, and one that I hope we will never use again. In an era of ever-creeping populism, there is a real threat that the well-intentioned actions we take today could be abused in future for completely unwarranted purposes.
Mr Kevan Jones
I concur with my hon. Friend’s statement about the separation of powers. Does he agree that it is time for the courts and judicial system to reflect on their role in the scandal, and on why they did not raise red flags when they should have done? The hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) said that we should not criticise individual judges, but some of them acted in a way that, frankly—I say this knowing some of the cases as I do—did not reflect the best of our judiciary.
Jonathan Reynolds
My right hon. Friend makes a powerful contribution. Many things go beyond the Bill and the independent inquiry that we are currently looking at, regarding the role and experience of our constituents in the legal system, how Government and Executive agencies function, and the evidence given to Ministers and the accountability we seek from that. A great deal has to change as a result of this. I understand his point.
Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being generous with his time. Does he also agree that we must look not only at how lawyers have handled this but, more importantly, at those who produced the evidence in the first place to persuade prosecutions? I hope he will agree that lessons must be learned by those who blindly said, “These people are probably guilty” and built up a case around that when, as we have found, that was not the case.
Jonathan Reynolds
I thank the right hon. Member for making those powerful points, which reflect on the nature of the evidence that was given. One of his hon. Friends has already made the point about the role of technological, computer-based evidence in the legal process. To be frank, there is also the Post Office’s approach to the data as it saw it, which I assume it believed to be a way of unveiling wrongdoing, rather than questioning that data. Most of our constituents ask, “How could the number of convictions have gone from five or six a year to 50 or 60 without that being flagged in some way?” Clearly, the powers that be—at the time—thought the data was revealing wrongdoing, rather than necessarily revealing something going wrong.
We can see from the contributions we have already had that all Members participating in today’s debate and who will participate in the Bill’s future stages are mindful that what we are saying is not only important, but might be referenced in future considerations. In that vein, let me clearly state that this legislation, although far from ideal, is the only option on the table for us to resolve this horrible injustice. But let me further state that any incoming Labour Government would never use this kind of action again. There are exceptional circumstances to this case that make it unique, rather than it being a moment to set a precedent for handling any future injustices.
The Post Office Horizon scandal took place over decades, and there is at least a decade’s worth of investigations that demonstrate the falsehoods behind many of the convictions made against sub-postmasters. That bank of evidence will only grow from the independent inquiry led by Sir Wyn Williams. The challenge to righting this wrong is not a lack of clear evidence, but a sheer volume of cases that is overwhelming the appropriate route to justice through the Court of Appeal. I lament that our justice system is under such strain, and it would be remiss of me not to point out that a better serviced Criminal Cases Review Commission could have avoided the extraordinary step that we must now take.
In addition, we must also recognise that a cohort of sub-postmasters with convictions are understandably reticent to take part in another process in a criminal justice system that so badly failed them the first time around. For the purposes of the historical record, an important qualification for taking this step is the scale of cross-party support that the legislation is attracting. I have raised that point with the Minister before, and I believe it to be an essential safeguard.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
May I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his cross-party and collaborative approach, which has brought us a significant step forward? I recognise the points he makes on the scale of the problem, which is why we have to act in this way. It is probably the least worst option for how we deal with this.
May I push back gently on his point that we have only started to act significantly since the TV drama? We welcome the public outcry that came as a result of the drama, the new attention that has been focused on the issue and the 1,200 new claimants who have stepped forward, but I push back because it is important that the public know that we were acting prior to the drama. We implemented the shortfall scheme in 2020, the inquiry back in 2020 and the GLO compensation scheme in 2021. The Horizon Compensation Advisory Board was put in place early in 2023, and the fixed-sum awards of £600,000 were put in place in autumn last year. We also had the overturned convictions and the exploring of different ways to do that on a mass basis. All these things were in place by the time of the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Act 2024, which we considered in December last year, and which the shadow Secretary of State and I spoke to during its consideration. Much work has been undertaken. We very much welcome the new impetus we have all got from the attention that the drama has brought about.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am always keen to hear from the Minister. I thought I was fair in making the point he raises in my introductory remarks. I simply make the point that the constitutional significance of legislation like this requires a level of public consent. The statement that the Prime Minister made in January, just after Prime Minister’s questions, would not have been possible without the sheer breakthrough in public consent and the demand for change and for justice that came from that. I will always be fair to the Government’s Ministers, and I point out even to some of their critics that we were dealing with things. We had the legislation that colleagues had worked on. It is fair to say there was less interest in some of that in the Chamber before we had the television programme, but let us be frank that we had the impasse of people not wanting to go back to the process. The estimate we had at the time was 10 to 15 years. That is what brought us to that point, and we have to recognise that, as well as paying tribute to the role that arts and culture can play in bringing things to an audience, which we should welcome.
Finally, I think I speak for everyone in the Chamber when I say that in no way does anyone take lightly what we are proposing to do today. This action is unprecedented, and we should make every effort possible to ensure that such action never again has to be considered.
Sir David Davis
This legislation is not totally the first precedent. There have been cases relating to people who were shot in the first world war for cowardice and then exonerated after the event, and so on. Does the shadow Secretary of State agree with the notion that we should put a sunset clause on this provision, to ensure that it in no way becomes a precedent?
Jonathan Reynolds
When we look at the precedents, it is interesting to note that there is clearly a legal difference between quashing a conviction and a pardon after an event has taken place, which is the precedent we are more familiar with. I am receptive to what colleagues are saying about a sunset clause from a judicial or safeguarding point of view. Clearly we want to capture as many people as possible who deserve to have their convictions quashed. When we get to Committee, which I assume will be on the Floor of the House, I am sure there will be an attempt to do that.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Is not the point about a sunset clause that none of us knows what is around the corner or what the future holds? Once this legislation has expired, the law of sod dictates that somebody somewhere will come up with a case that requires to be dealt with. That is eminently possible. A sunset clause would serve no useful purpose, other than smoothing a few ruffled judicial legal feathers.
Jonathan Reynolds
I hear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, and we do not want to do Committee stage on Second Reading. We are hearing about the necessity of ensuring that, where cases fall beyond the specific circumstances—to be fair to the Government, I understand why the legislation has been drafted in this way to address this particular cohort, for simplicity and straightforwardness—they can still be identified. Some of that could be done on the numbers, but we will have time to explore this matter in Committee.
Ian Paisley
On the issue of consent, the shadow Secretary of State is right to point out that all sides of the House have consented to this legislation, and that is what makes law change flow much easier. A lot of good will has been expressed about Northern Ireland and increasing the territorial extent of this legislation, but that good will butters no parsnips—as someone else in the House often says. The fact of the matter is that, ultimately, we must ensure that Northern Ireland is included in this legislation. If a motion came forward to instruct the House to extend the Bill to cover Northern Ireland, would the Opposition support it, so that those fine words and good will are turned into strong action?
Jonathan Reynolds
I will say something specifically about the territorial extent of the Bill, but the straightforward answer is yes, there are circumstances here to which we should listen. I hope the hon. Member will not mind me saying this, but when all political parties in Northern Ireland are in agreement on something, it is usually worth listening and understanding why that might be the case. I will address specifically how we might deal with that matter later in my remarks.
Liam Byrne
The shadow Secretary of State is making a brilliant speech. Does he agree that we might want to reflect on measures to de-risk the speed of paying compensation? It is important that we overturn convictions, but it is also right that we accelerate compensation. Just because the Department is running the scheme is not necessarily a guarantee that payments will flow quickly. This morning, the Business and Trade Committee crunched the data on the GLO scheme, and unfortunately it would appear that 14% of offers have taken more than 14 days, 4% have taken more than 80 days, and 2% have taken more than 100 days. We obviously need to get the measures right, and there are lots of issues at play, but de-risking the speed of compensation sounds like something we should reflect on.
Jonathan Reynolds
I thank my right hon. Friend for those remarks and for all the work the Select Committee has done to assist this process. He is right to say that while it is one thing to pass the Bill, what everyone wants is for it to be a route to speedy compensation as soon as possible. I welcome some of the changes we have seen, such as the optional £600,000 up-front payment available to people to get through some of the complexity of the cases. When the Select Committee published its report, it looked at the recommendation to include in the Bill deadlines for the Government to pay compensation, but we have since received useful information about how binding limits might restrict the most complex cases in an undesirable way. In his closing remarks, will the postal affairs Minister undertake on behalf of the Government to reflect on that point, because everyone will want to be able to say, “We care, and we have pushed forward the need for compensation payments to flow smoothly.”
Mr Kevan Jones
I have to say to my good friend the shadow Minister that this is where I depart from the Select Committee. The advisory board has been very clear that we need to make the system simple. To be fair to the Government, they have listened on the lump-sum payments. What we need is to get those simple cases out of the system—I am not sure they are “simple”—and concentrate on the complex cases. Knowing the nature of some of those cases, they will be complex. It is not just the Government or the advisory board saying that. Talk to the lawyers who are putting cases in. There is a lot of work to be done on those cases; they are not straightforward and they will take time. Putting an arbitrary deadline on them might lead to their not being properly addressed, and some cases will be about more than £600,000. Although it is a good idea to try to speed up the system, some of the steps already taken by the Government will do so.
Jonathan Reynolds
I thank my right hon. Friend for that. The work of the advisory board on all this has been invaluable and is very much appreciated. We can all accept that a number of cases may seek compensation payments well in excess of £600,000 because of the scale of the loss and the complexity. No one would want or seek to do anything to prevent those cases from concluding in the way that is necessary. I simply ask the Minister to reflect on how the Government can give assurances on the best way to do that.
I come back to the issue raised by colleagues from Northern Ireland about the territorial extent of the Bill’s provisions and the desire to overturn the convictions of the small but significant number of affected sub-postmasters in Northern Ireland, who would otherwise fall beyond the scope of the legislation. I can tell colleagues that the Labour party supports the calls made. I understand that this would be a complex constitutional undertaking, but given that every party in Northern Ireland and, I believe, every Minister in the new Assembly are calling for inclusion in the Bill, we must recognise that.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Because this is an unusual case, the Scottish Government have specifically asked that the Bill also take in Scotland. I understand that the Labour party supports that position too, but we have not really heard any rational reason why Scotland and Northern Ireland are excluded from the Bill.
Jonathan Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman will not mind my teasing him about a call for Unionism from the Scottish National party. [Interruption.] Just on this issue! As I understand it, the issue is that the Scottish judiciary does not support inclusion.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
That is ridiculous.
Jonathan Reynolds
Hon. Members will have a chance to speak; I cannot speak for every part of the judiciary in the UK, but I believe that that is the issue. The nature of the always distinct legal system in Scotland is a key part of this, whereas in Northern Ireland it is slightly more complicated.
Mr Carmichael
I fear that the issue is not so much with the Scottish judiciary as with the prosecuting authorities, given the remarks already on the record from the Lord Advocate. If I may, I will offer the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), through the shadow Minister, a rational reason: it is about political accountability. The lines of political accountability lie through the Scottish Parliament and the Crown Office. There are good and compelling reasons about delay for making an exception for Northern Ireland, particularly in relation to the requirement for a full public consultation. Those arguments do not apply in Scotland.
Jonathan Reynolds
I hear what the right hon. Member says. I can foresee it being seen as reasonable to extend the legislation to Northern Ireland in a way that will not apply to Scotland, given the position of a lot of colleagues in Scotland and without the Scottish Parliament and Scottish judiciary wanting to be part of that extension.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The shadow Secretary of State is making a powerful speech, particularly about the impact on the lives of the sub-postmasters. The 28 or so in Northern Ireland have experienced the same turmoil as those in Great Britain. We thank the shadow Secretary of State for his endorsement of Northern Ireland’s inclusion in the Bill. We would make a further call for that today.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am grateful to the hon. Member for those words. I know that colleagues from Northern Ireland are keen to bring forward an amendment on that. I ask Ministers to reflect on the scale of political support that we have seen and are seeing, and to take the issue away for further consideration before the Committee stage, so that justice can be brought to the 27 sub-postmasters—I think—in Northern Ireland.
To conclude, for many people who watched the ITV adaptation of the Horizon scandal in January, it will have been hard to believe that the ongoing tragedy was not a work of fiction, so egregious and pernicious have the impacts been on people’s lives. However, it was not a TV show. It is very real and has had real-world impacts. Lessons must be learned and justice must be served. In the weeks after the drama, I believe attention sadly had to be turned away from the sub-postmasters and their needs, and the conversation became much more about the soap opera that has been seemingly ongoing with the management of the Post Office. Addressing that issue will demand serious attention, but the priority today should be providing sub-postmasters with justice. It is welcome that we have returned to that core issue today.
Labour will support the legislation. It is right that innocent people have their convictions overturned, not just so that they can begin to turn the page on the scandal, but so that it leads to the quick access to compensation that everybody rightly deserves. Not every story will finish with a happy ending. As we know, some people did not live to see this, and others have lost so much that their lives could never be put right. However, the actions we can take in this place can go at least some way to ensuring that the next chapter of the story of the sub-postmasters will be their own and will be based on the principles of justice and fair treatment that everyone wants to see.
Sir David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I hope the Secretary of State will not take this amiss and will understand that I mean no criticism of her or her Minister of State, or indeed his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), when I say that the Bill represents the best of a bad job. Everybody has said it already; there is a difficult trade-off between natural justice and a fast, low-stress solution for the postmasters. That is what this Bill attempts to achieve.
That being said, it is not the way I would have done it. It is not what I would have proposed. The courts should and could have considered all the cases in which the convictions were based on Horizon evidence in one set of proceedings. I took senior legal advice on this; it would have been perfectly possible to take three or more former Supreme Court justices out of retirement, give them a courtroom and task them to deal with this in three months. They could have bracketed very similar cases together—there would have been hundreds in those categories—and then they could have focused on the ones that were really difficult. Regrettably, it is rumoured that the judiciary itself rebuffed that course of action, which I think was unwise and plain wrong. As the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) pointed out, the judiciary has a responsibility, too. That is why we have gone this route, and I have every sympathy with what Ministers are trying to do.
Even so, the Bill still risks lumping the genuinely innocent majority with a very small potentially guilty minority. Each difficult case could have been dealt with on its individual merits rather than abandoning due process in the rush to bring this disgraceful episode to a close. We got into this situation by failing to follow proper processes, and I am wary that the Government, almost by default, are again failing to follow proper process to extricate themselves from this historic mess.
Despite my misgivings, I will not stand in the way of the Bill, because it will serve the vast majority of postmasters to secure justice for them. For that reason, I will support the Bill. However, that is not to say that the legislation will not continue to create problems of its own. I recommend that Members read some of the early reports before Report stage. The BAE Systems Detica report, which everyone should read, is a six-month review of the Post Office’s fraud and non-compliance issues in 2013. It paints a picture of complete chaos in the Post Office’s accounting systems—not just Horizon but all the accounting systems. Over a decade ago it was known that:
“Post Office systems are not fit for purpose in a modern retail and financial environment”.
Note that it refers to “systems”—plural—not just Horizon. The report goes on to say that ATM—cashpoint—accounting was clearly flawed and that
“removing the ATM reduces the risk of SPMR being suspended”.
By SPMR the report means sub-postmasters, and I am afraid that suspended means persecuted, as that was outcome. That was not Horizon related.
That matters because dozens have come forward to raise concerns over a second IT system used by the Post Office, called Capture. Again, documents show that Capture was known by the Post Office to have issues early on. The culture of denial in the Post Office over the decades is truly extraordinary. The Bill will exclude people who have already had their appeal cases heard and rejected. Those rejections may well have occurred because the evidence that the appeals were based on was not Horizon but some other failure of the accounting systems. We must be careful not to give up once we pass the Bill, but to see if we can also absolve people who are not guilty because of the wholesale chaos that existed.
Sir David Davis
I give way to probably the best-informed man in the House on this matter,.
Duncan Baker
My right hon. Friend makes a good point: the Post Office main accounts would have had debtors saying that they were owed money—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Will the hon. Member please face the Chamber, so that the whole House can hear him?
Duncan Baker
My apologies. The debtors would have said that those innocent sub-postmasters owed the Post Office corporate accounts what we now know to be tens of millions of pounds. But they were wrong—that was fictious and they were not owed that money. Will we ever get to the bottom of that and restate the Post Office’s accounts, which must have been materially wrong year after year throughout that period from 2010?
Sir David Davis
My hon. Friend has more experience of this issue than anyone, and he reinforces my point. Frankly, if I had a magic wand I would force the Post Office to re-audit every set of accounts for the last 20 years and give back the money, but that will not happen: it would drag on forever, and we know the stress that it is causing postmasters even today. My worry is that we may feel at the end of this process that we have solved the problem, but there will be some—perhaps only dozens or hundreds, not thousands—who will be left not absolved or exonerated, but who deserve to be. That is the risk of this approach.
Liam Byrne
Given the right hon. Gentleman’s argument, will he reflect on whether we should include in the scope of the Bill those who went to the Court of Appeal initially but lost, or those who were not given leave to appeal, on the basis that we simply did not know then what we know now? Should we provide for that handful of cases—perhaps under 40—in the Bill rather than exclude them?
Sir David Davis
Those are precisely the cases I am focusing on; there may be others that we do not know about but they are the most obvious ones. I agree but, again, if I had a magic wand, I would use the mechanism that I mentioned of unretiring a few Supreme Court justices and saying, “These are more complicated and require a bit more insight. You can’t deal with these en bloc. Will you please reconsider them?” On the one hand, I want to exonerate people who are truly innocent but, on the other, postmasters still call me up and say, “Whatever you do, don’t exonerate the guilty.” It seems to me that the best way is a judicial or quasi-judicial route over and above what we are doing here. No doubt we will debate that at some length on Report.
I will still support the Bill because, at the end of the day, it is the difficult compromise that the Government have found. They have got to where they are by talking to everyone, including the right hon. Member for North Durham, who is not in his place just now, and taking all the expert advice. The Bill is necessary.
I had a telephone call just yesterday from a victim of the scandal, which I mentioned in my earlier intervention. Her name is Janet Skinner, and she is not my constituent but she called me anyway. She told me that 15 years later, she is still going through misery and, despite having promised me that they would not, Post Office management are putting her through an inquisition, demanding documents from her from 15 years ago. During that time she was in prison and had to sell her house, so she probably has no documents, given the disruption of all that. The Post Office itself will have those documents somewhere, and if it does not, it ought to have them.
That barbaric mindset is still going on from, frankly, a sickeningly inadequate and self-absorbed Post Office management, as we saw when they gave evidence to the Committee of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). That is a problem, and we have to get the Bill under way as fast as possible. I pay enormous credit to both the junior Ministers who have dealt with this, my hon. Friends the Members for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and for Sutton and Cheam. They were both formidably good at their job at a time when the whole Whitehall and Post Office system was desperately trying to ignore the issue. They did a heroic job of dragging it back up the priority list. The Minister needs to force the Post Office to solve the problem, or, as the right hon. Member for North Durham said, force someone else in its place to put this right quickly, easily, gracefully and with minimum stress for the postmasters.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I have been listening intently to everything that has been said today. I would like to reflect on the number of times I have stood here and talked about the Horizon business. I do not want to repeat my previous remarks, but I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) said, which has been repeated in this Chamber many times.
We are coming close to a point where we may see movement towards justice for sub-postmasters. The exoneration Bill is vital to that. I am deeply disappointed that Scotland has been left out of the Bill. I have been working hard with the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), and I have had many meetings with Northern Ireland MPs from all parties. If Northern Ireland is to be included in the Bill, I can see no reason why Scotland cannot be.
Sir David Davis
I have every sympathy with the hon. Lady and in particular with Northern Irish Members on this matter. Northern Ireland is a very special case in so many ways, for reasons we all know. Is there a reason why the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government could not simply replicate the Bill and carry it through?
Marion Fellows
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There is absolutely no reason, and the Scottish Government are indeed prepared to do that. There is ongoing work on that, but it will mean that Scottish victims will have to wait longer for exoneration.
Mr Carmichael
The Scottish Parliament has provisions in its own Standing Orders for emergency procedures, just as we have. It would be open to it to do it in three days, if it chose to.
Marion Fellows
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am surrounded by lawyerly people and I am not a lawyer. In fact, I sat in a room last night for a briefing where I was surrounded by lawyers and even the lawyers were agreeing that they could not agree on the right way forward. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct, and the Scottish Government will do that, but they cannot do it until we see what happens with the Bill as it is brought towards enactment and until we can take into consideration all the amendments that may be necessary for Northern Ireland. That will create a delay. Yes, the Scottish Government can—I cannot say they will, because I am not a Member of the Scottish Parliament or the Scottish Government—and it is possible for the Scottish Parliament to pass a Bill in three days, but it must be aligned with the exoneration Bill passed here. Otherwise, Scottish victims will not be treated equitably and fairly.
On 10 January, the Minister spoke in this place to, I believe, the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) and said he saw no reason at that point why there could not be UK legislation. At an Interministerial Standing Committee on 12 March, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said that he saw no reason why that could not happen. Yet a few days after that the Bill arrived in Scotland with no mention of Scotland at all. It is the Scottish Government’s belief that the Bill could be amended to take into consideration the differences in legal terms. For example, amendments would be needed to bring about alignment on embezzlement and to cover all the different crimes, if you like—well, not crimes, because the sub-postmasters did nothing wrong—so that the Bill would apply in Scotland. The Bill could clear the decks of all the things sub-postmasters were charged with and convicted for, so it is all possible. The issue is one of timing, with sub-postmasters in Scotland being told, “Okay, you’ve waited, but you’ll have to wait longer.”
In this place, and right across the work I have done over the past few years on the Post Office, there has always been cross-party agreement on getting things sorted out for the victims. As the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said, that is the point of the whole thing. It is about the victims. It is about what has happened since “Mr Bates vs the Post Office” was broadcast. I sat with my daughter-in-law, who is herself a lawyer—I don’t hold that against her—and she kept saying, “Is this true, Marion? Is this true?” and I had to say that yes, it was.
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank the hon. Lady once again for the all the work she does. As I have said to her on a number of occasions, our officials are working together on a weekly basis and I have met my counterparts in Scotland on this issue. She will acknowledge that the UK Parliament is taking a political risk. This is unprecedented and unpopular in some quarters. Does she not accept that, as politicians, there are times when we have to stand up and accept the political responsibility and accountability for doing the right thing in our own jurisdictions, just in the way the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said?
Marion Fellows
I agree with the Minister—of course I do—but let us think back to the victims. Scottish victims should not have to wait any longer than victims across the rest of the United Kingdom. If the Scottish Government were to expedite a Bill in the Scottish Parliament without knowing exactly where this Bill will end up—already today there has been talk of amendments to it to help Northern Ireland—then that would not be right either.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. I am absolutely willing to listen to the case she is making—that we could, in theory, amend the Bill to cover Scotland—but I do not, if I am being honest, follow the logic that it would take longer to pass a Bill affecting Scottish sub-postmasters in the Scottish Parliament than to amend the Bill before us. I do not agree that extending it to Northern Ireland would in any way adversely affect the Scottish situation.
Marion Fellows
The hon. Member has every right to disagree with me, but I come back to my main point. The Scottish legislation would have to mirror what is done here so we treat victims across the piece the same way, but there would have to be certain amendments made because of Scots law. That is my point: we cannot do it in Scotland until it is done here, so that it mirrors what has been done here.
The other point I want to make is that this has nothing to do with the Scottish Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly. The whole business of Horizon arose here under Post Office Ltd, which is wholly owned by the UK Government as the single shareholder. There is therefore a logic to saying that the mess was made here, so it should be cleared up here. No matter whether there ends up being a separate Bill in Scotland with this Bill relating only to England and Wales, everyone across parties agrees that this must be sorted. The Bill is not really what we would all want to do—it is unprecedented, there are risks and so on—but at the end of the day it has to be done. The Scottish Government understand and support that, but want it done here to cover everyone.
Shailesh Vara
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, who has been very generous in giving way. She says that the Scottish Government want to see what happens here. We have heard that a Bill can be passed in three days. Once the Bill goes through this place, then in a matter of days, not weeks, it can be replicated in Scotland and passed in 72 hours. Given that the matter has been going on for years and years and years, I fail to see what the big issue is with having a few days more so that a Bill can get through in Scotland.
Marion Fellows
There is absolutely no guarantee that it would just be a few days more. There are the different timings of Scottish Parliament sittings and a lot of other considerations that the right hon. Gentleman will not know about and does not normally need to know about. I will be seeking to amend the Bill—I will take advice and then attempt to do what is going to be done for Northern Ireland. I am well aware that that may seem a futile exercise to some, but this is democracy and this is what has to be done from a Scottish perspective, and I am more than happy to take that on.
I would like to close with some messages that have already come out from Members across the Chamber.As a constituency MP, I first had a meeting with sub-postmasters in 2015, two months after I was elected. I had no notion of what Horizon was, or of the damage that it was doing to my sub-postmasters. Over the last almost nine years—and more recently, since “Mr Bates vs the Post Office”—I have had to listen to grown men, and also women, trying not to cry because of what the Post Office had done to them. None of them, not one, was actually charged or prosecuted. They just went on putting their own hard-earned cash into their tills so that they could open their post offices the next morning. I have pleaded with all those people, and I plead again with people across the UK who have been affected, to come forward, but the problem is the lack of trust. Those who were prosecuted are suffering, but so are those who were not. They are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. They are traumatised by what has happened to them.
I also want to raise, very briefly, the case of those who worked for partners of the post office: people who worked for the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, Scotmid or CJ Lang who were sacked by their employers and could not get an equivalent job, and who were depressed and ill for years as a result. We really must take those people into consideration. I understand that a Bill cannot be a magic wand and make everything go away, but I think it imperative for the House to keep at it. I agree with my right hon. Friend—and I call him that gladly—the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that we cannot impose a time limit, because it might mean that people did not receive justice or redress.
I should be happy to speak to the Minister later and catch up with all the to-ings and fro-ings between Scotland and this place, but I still stand here saying, “This is what the Scottish Government have looked at, and this is what they want, because they think it is best for the victims in Scotland.”
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
It has been a privilege to sit here listening to the amazing contributions from the Secretary of State, the shadow Secretary of State—I thank the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) for his kind words—and all the other Members whom we have heard from and will hear from after my own short contribution.
As we have just been reminded by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), we have been coming here time and again for years and years, often repeating ourselves—but we have to repeat ourselves: that is the point. The shadow Secretary of State talked about that powerful ITV drama, “Mr Bates vs the Post Office”, and how it prompted a public outcry. I became a Minister in February 2020, shortly after the group litigation order case that was featured towards the end of that drama, and I am pretty sure that the email Alan Bates was typing to send to the postal affairs Minister was sent to me. He was sending quite a large invoice, which I politely declined to pay at the time.
I had pages and pages of Mr Justice Fraser’s judgment to look at and reflect on. I was in a different position from my predecessors, who maybe should or maybe should not have sat there and read the runes and seen what was going on—why there were so many people involved, and why the number of prosecutions was going up and up over 20 years. What I did have were those pages of damning judgment from Mr Justice Fraser.
I think that the public outcry that arose from the ITV programme has given power to the current postal affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who has been working tirelessly. He has read out a timetable showing the incredible amount of work that he has been doing since I left that role. I know that he is a man who understands what justice and fairness look like following his experience of financial scandals such as the miscarriage of justice at HBOS Reading. He was a constant “come to me” in that role. If anyone was going to delve into this work, it was always going to be my hon. Friend. I think that the documentary helped him to pull some of the levers that junior Ministers sometimes need to pull in order to be heard, and to enable us to swim through the treacle in other Departments in order to get things done, so more power to his elbow.
That brings me to why we are doing this in the first place. The central issue is often seen as a software failure. Even in the documentary it was a deliberate dramatic plot device to show a computer sitting in the corner of the post office, blinking away like a slightly alien life force that was draining the money away. But it was not a software failure; it was a human failure. We all know that software goes wrong—we remember the millennium bug—but the problem here was group-think and people doubling down for reputational management, which was pushing back and making sure that the postmasters believed that they were the only ones experiencing these issues. We know now, and we quickly came to know, that hundreds of people were in the same position.
The fact that this was a human failure means that we need a human solution. We have to be humans first and politicians second. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw spoke of watching grown men trying not to cry. I am not the best at doing that myself, although I am not directly involved. I recently attended the presentation of the GG2 Asian awards round the corner from here, and to my surprise I saw Hasmukh Shingadia, Vijay Parekh, Vipin Patel and Seema Misra. Members may remember Seema’s story in particular; she was pregnant at the time when she was charged in West Byfleet. Those people were receiving awards and recognition, and it was lovely to see the outpouring of support for them in the room.
Shailesh Vara
Those are the people who received the awards, but does my hon. Friend agree that an award is due for every single sub-postmaster?
Paul Scully
For sure. We cannot do enough for these people. They have been cast out as pariahs in their communities. They have been charged, they have been put in prison, they have lost houses, families and health, because of a body that is ultimately owned by the state. We, as a collective body, have destroyed these people’s lives. There is not enough that we can do for them.
We are looking at what is in the Bill and at all the other compensation schemes as well, but we have to act. We are having to conduct this mass exoneration in the first place not just that the wheels of justice turn slowly, but because these people are so triggered, whether by PTSD or simply by total mistrust of the system, that they do not want to go through another process with someone in authority saying kind words, warm words, and then letting them down for the second time—or worse. It is actions, not words, on which we will be judged. When I stood up at that Dispatch Box, I knew that whatever I talked about, I could not expect the postmasters to trust me. I knew that they would trust me on the basis of my actions, and I know that my hon. Friend the current Minister feels the same way.
I welcome the Bill. It is important for us not to let perfection be the enemy of the good. Let us get this done, because we cannot come on to the second Bill and these people’s compensation until they have been exonerated—not pardoned, for they have done nothing wrong. Let us make sure that we accentuate that as well. That is why I am keen for us to rush this legislation through. Yes, we need to scrutinise it, but it is a short Bill, so we can do that quickly, and then we can get on to that life-changing money that I—that we—keep talking about, and try to restore some semblance of their lives to those whose lives have been destroyed.
This is Second Reading, and we will get into the specifics in Committee and on Report, but let me offer a few possible solutions. The solution that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) talked about earlier—bringing back judges—would at least add capacity to the system. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who is no longer in his place, previously said something similar when he said that we do not necessarily need this kind of law, which is, frankly, trampling quite a lot on the independence of the judiciary. That is why the Government had to move really carefully, which is one reason for some of the concerns raised by the Business and Trade Committee about the people who have not been able to go to appeal, or who will not be included because they have been refused leave to appeal or have failed in their appeal.
There is still more that we can do for victims of this scandal. They will be able to appeal at another time, but maybe there is something we can do, in the way that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst suggested in their contributions, to accelerate their cases and not just let them have to go through the same situation that they would otherwise have done. May I respectfully suggest that that may be the case for Scotland and, indeed, Northern Ireland? I am not an expert or a lawyer, and it is not for me to give advice, but it occurs to me that if the proposed amendment does not go through and the territorial extent stays as it is—that is for this place to judge in other stages of the Bill—perhaps there are other methods that we can use to make sure that postmasters in Scotland and Northern Ireland do not receive compensation more slowly.
We all want this to be done as quickly as possible. The postal affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, has talked about getting the majority of the compensation delivered by August. Clearly, that is not going to happen, because we have only just got this Bill through, so we will have to exonerate the postmasters. However, if we can get the Horizon shortfall scheme and the rest of the GLO largely done by that time, and restore these people’s lives to some sense of normality, then we can do the rest of it. We still have not finished, because we have to get Sir Wyn Williams’s report back and get the investigation done.
Some previous contributors to the debate said that it might take weeks or months to deliver the compensation, and that there might be complications. I remember speaking to the solicitors who represented the 555 people involved the GLO. I said, “If we gave you lots and lots of money and you distributed it, how long would it take?” The answer was about 18 months. It is about how we apportion the money and work it through—the same kinds of things that the advisory committee has been wrestling with—and the solicitors would have to do that internally. It is not a matter of giving people life-changing sums of money in one block and then everybody is okay; it is about making sure that we can work through the system, which will inevitably take time.
When I made Sir Wyn Williams’s investigation non-statutory, it was to get speed into the system to make sure that we did not have to “lawyer up”, as it was described. I always wanted money to go to the victims, not to lawyers talking about the same things again. As I say, if we can get the compensation out, we have to get the answers. We keep on talking in this place about the Horizon scandal, the infected blood scandal and any number of scandals, and I keep hearing people say that it must never happen again. Do you know what? It usually does. Why? Because we talk and talk about it, but we do not learn the true lessons or get the answers.
Sir David Davis
One of the things we need to consider, both now and later, is how we stop this happening again. I reiterate the point I made in my speech: when the inquiry looked at it, there was systemic failure right across the board. My hon. Friend is right to say it was a human failure, a system failure and an organisational failure. The Post Office is an arm’s length department. What we are finding with this and other cases is that arm’s length departments are disasters when it comes to correcting mistakes and delivering accountability. Does he agree that we should think about that when we are doing this?
Paul Scully
As usual, my right hon. Friend is absolutely on point. In our Department, we had a number of arm’s length organisations, which is true of other Government Departments as well. They are representatives of the Government, and we elected politicians or the Government will inevitably be held accountable; if there is no direct relationship, it is very difficult to speak from the Dispatch Box with enough authority and information to be able to take that accountability.
Shailesh Vara
I commend my hon. Friend for a very passionate and committed speech. The point about learning lessons is crucial. I fear, as do others in this Chamber, that in the old times we would say that the file is sitting on a shelf, collecting dust; nowadays, it would be archived and just stay there. Does my hon. Friend agree that serious attention needs to be paid to ensuring that we learn from this episode and the countless other occasions when things go wrong? There needs to be some sort of set-up to make sure that other bodies—voluntary organisations or those at arm’s length—actually take on board what has been said.
Paul Scully
Absolutely; that is a really good case in point. I hope my right hon. Friend will be in the next Parliament to help drive this through. I have said I am stepping down, so I will not see Sir Wyn Williams’s final report—not from these Benches, anyway. I hope the House takes it to heart and drives through the lessons learned.
I recommend a book by Matthew Syed, called “Black Box Thinking”. He compares accidents in the NHS with accidents and near accidents in the airline industry. With aircraft, even just a near miss gets learned from not only by the airline in question; it has to be passed on to every airline in the world. There is a collective sense of learning in the industry.
Chris Stephens
I have enjoyed the hon. Gentleman’s considered speech so far. When he was a Minister, did he have a potential solution for what my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) mentioned: the Asda employees in Scotland who have been caught up in this scandal?
Paul Scully
I did not, but the issue is worth looking at. This is a human scandal, and it is not just about the postmasters who were directly affected. I am not sure how we start to unpick that as it gets wider and wider, but I hope and trust that the Government will reflect on it as we do the wider learning.
Kevin Hollinrake
I was tempted to intervene on two of the interventions I heard, but that is impossible here. It is certainly possible that the person who had the contractual relationship with the business concerned, such as a small post office, could submit a claim to the Horizon shortfall scheme, which could include amounts that should be paid to individuals who worked for them so that they can be compensated through that route.
Given that we are looking at public sector or quasi-public sector organisations, it would be dangerous to assume that there is a problem with governance. As my hon. Friend said, from the Back Benches I dealt with a number of scandals that involved private sector organisations, such as Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland—we saw years of obfuscation around similar kinds of problems. We should not jump to conclusions. We should probably let the inquiry report first, and have a debate from there.
Paul Scully
My hon. Friend makes a really good point. To follow on from the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden, it is difficult for us as parliamentarians, and doubly difficult for Government Ministers, to speak with authority on behalf of a public organisation—rather than the private sector, which we do not speak on behalf of—without necessarily having all the facts, because there is only so much we can drill into.
Obviously, we want to right the wrongs of the past and make sure as best we can that the people’s situations are restored so that they can have a future for themselves and their families. There is also the case of the Post Office itself. The Post Office still has more branches than the banks and building societies put together. I know that there have been closures in certain areas—that is a whole other debate, perhaps for Westminster Hall—but none the less, the Post Office has a massive impact on people’s lives, especially in rural communities. We must not forget that when we are looking at the Post Office, its brand and its overall aim. This is not a reflection on the current management or anything like that. We have to give the Post Office a future.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on this issue and other issues protecting local post offices and looking at the range of services they can offer to the community. Has he had any further reflections about the role of post offices in communities? I also want to thank him specifically for the work he did to support my constituency. Perhaps, now that he has left the Government, he can tell the House his own thoughts on post offices as part of the local community and the potential for new services to be based in them.
Paul Scully
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s kind words regarding when we worked together on his constituency issue. We ask the Post Office to do a lot of work of social value and economic value, and those often conflict. It is difficult to get that right. We cannot ask the Post Office to turn a good profit as if it was just another bank, as well as to do the things we sometimes expect as parliamentarians, especially when we talk about our own constituencies and those in more rural areas. That is something we have to give careful consideration to. My original point is that while we are righting the wrongs of the past, we have to remember that this is an important organisation for our country and our constituents and we have to give it a future as well.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Can I begin by declaring an interest as a member of the Horizon compensation advisory board? It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). When he was a Minister he grasped this issue and drove it forward, and I am sad to see that he is standing down at the next election. One thing he can claim great credit for is being the only Minister I have dealt with, apart from his successor, who had compassion and wanted to sort this out. Okay, we had some quite heated disagreements on occasions, but at least he was prepared to listen. He brought a unique set of skills, and when he leaves the House he can have this great achievement for the individuals affected as a great credit to his parliamentary record.
I welcome the Bill. It was a solution put forward by the Horizon compensation advisory board, and I want to pay tribute to Professor Chris Hodges, Lord Arbuthnot and Professor Richard Moorhead, who sit on the advisory board with us. When we came up with this plan, did we think that the Government would agree to it? No, we did not. Were we shocked when they did? We were. I will not say what Chris Hodges said privately at one meeting because it would be unparliamentary.
This was a difficult thing to do and it comes after years of heartache and a lot of campaigning by the sub-postmasters. Alan Bates has already been mentioned and I pay tribute to him and the 555. As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said, if they had not taken that court case, the dam would not have broken—this is down to those individuals who had the tenacity to do that. Over the years, has it been easy for those individuals? No, it has not. As someone who has been involved for many years, I can tell the House that we did sometimes doubt ourselves and ask whether we were missing something. We were not missing something; it was a complete injustice. But when the system and the state are against a person, it takes great courage and tenacity to continue. I know that some had self-doubt along the way, but all credit to them—they stuck with it.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
It is not just the Horizon case; it is also Hillsborough, Grenfell, Windrush and the contaminated blood scandal where people are still waiting for compensation. The state and the justice system, which are there to protect citizens, actually become the enemy of the citizen. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to find a way for people to get quicker redress and have their cases heard, rather than the state saying that it cannot be wrong in any circumstances and leaving these people to fight for such a long time to get justice?
Mr Jones
I agree totally with my hon. Friend and I pay tribute to him. In all these debates over the years, he has always been on my right hand side arguing for his constituents. I thank him for his work and his persistence.
My hon. Friend also raises a bigger point. When the state get things wrong—badly wrong in this case, but he mentions other cases as well—it goes into tortoise mode and says that it cannot be wrong. Well, it has been wrong. I am not making a party political point here, because is not one. Across the House we need to come up with a system of dealing with these cases, in terms of the transparency of information that we need to get out of the system and of having a swift compensation system for putting things right. We need to work on that in the next Parliament on a cross-party basis. As the Minister said earlier, he was involved in a number of cases that involved not the state but the private sector, but they were very similar. This is something I would certainly like to work with colleagues on.
I also want to thank the Minister for his work. I would not describe him as a show pony in politics; he is the steady shire horse of this place. He is solid and determined and he pushes on, even when obstacles are put in his way. I also give credit to him for the cross-party work he has done. He has not seen it as point scoring. He has worked closely with my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) and other Members across the House and I really appreciate that. I would just say to any new Ministers after the election: if you want two examples of how to do the job, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam and the Minister are it and they should take credit for that.
Today’s Bill is historic. We are doing something very unusual and there is a delicate balancing act to be struck between this place and the judiciary. I understand that. I always respect the judiciary, but I also reflect on the fact that it has some questions to answer in this process. We had the trade union movement for the lawyers earlier on when the hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) and the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) were on their feet—it would not be a debate without that lobby coming in—but the judiciary needs to ask the question: how did we get into this position? There was a pattern here, and robust questions were not asked. The hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said that we should not attack judges, but the conduct of certain judges in some of these cases was not very sympathetic to the victims, and we need to reflect on that. I do not think this place should interfere with the judiciary. The instant reaction that this is a fight between Parliament and the justiciary is wrong, but in this case the judiciary got it wrong.
The other area that desperately needs to be looked at is the use of computer evidence in court cases. At the moment, there is no reference to computer code in law. After the election, or sooner, we need an urgent review to reflect how computers are not static machines. They might be machines, but their software and code are ever changing. That is important.
I support the current approach, although I accept that some people are not comfortable with it. As the Minister said, only 103 cases have been dealt with so far, so I will explain why I am committed to this approach. Last year I had a phone call from an individual from the north-east—I do not want to identify him—who said that his friend’s wife had been prosecuted and that he thought it might be a Horizon case. I said, “Get him to speak to me, or I can go to see them.” It took quite a few months for him to persuade his wife to meet me.
It was only when I went to see the victim in her small council flat in the north-east of England that I understood why such people never come forward. This woman had run a successful sub-post office, but she was prosecuted by the Post Office. She should have a comfortable retirement and a highly respected name in the local community in which she still lives, but she does not. She is traumatised by her experience, and she was very reluctant to see me. She was terrified and kept asking, “My name won’t be in the paper again, will it?” I said, “No, no one will know what you have told me.” She would never have come forward to go into a court process. I have subsequently spoken to the family to reassure them that, if the Bill is enacted, the victim will not go to court. This woman is terrified. Her good name will be cleared, and she will have access to the compensation that she rightly deserves.
That is just one example, and there are numerous others. People ask whether the Bill is a messy way of doing it, but I do not think it is, because people like that victim would never have justice without it. Some people might be uncertain about what we are doing, but I am not. These are unique circumstances, and I do not think they set a precedent. We can ensure that these people have their good name restored.
When the newspapers have said that a sub-postmaster stole money that they did not steal, it takes a lot for them to stay in their small community. This happened 20 years ago and the victim is still traumatised, which is why this Bill is the right approach.
I welcome last week’s announcement that fixed awards will be offered through the Horizon shortfall scheme. The advisory board was pressing for this, and the Minister championed it too. These awards are a good way of ensuring that we deal with cases speedily. I read the Select Committee’s report, and I disagree on the time limit. We need to settle the straightforward cases—they are not all straightforward, but some are.
The Minister, like me, does not want to pay lawyers. It will be better if we can avoid paying lawyers by ensuring that the compensation goes to the victims, and fixed awards are the way to do it. I consider this to be like a bucket, and we need to take out the simpler cases. We then need to consider the more complex cases, which will take time. It is easy to say that officials are deliberately slowing down the system, but I do not believe that at all. Even the lawyers representing these people need time to do it. As the Minister knows, some cases will be very expensive, more than the £600,000 compensation award. This is the right approach.
Matt Rodda
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech, and I particularly concur with his description of the enormous challenges that many victims face. Does he agree that the nature of any review or policy development is particularly important? If we can find a way to speed up the compensation by dealing with the slightly less difficult cases first, it could benefit everyone and may reduce the costs to the Government and the public.
Mr Jones
I think it is. In fairness, the Minister wants to get these cases done quickly, as does the advisory board. One controversial thing is that some people will get a little more money than they lost. I am comfortable with that, because I would sooner they get the money than it go to the lawyers or the process be dragged out. If we can get those cases dealt with speedily—some progress has been made on that—we can then get the effort and force put into sorting out the more complex ones.
Sir David Davis
The right hon. Gentleman rightly says that some people may get a little more money than perhaps come out of the arithmetic, but would most of us not pay anything to avoid what they have gone through?
Mr Jones
Exactly. If somebody gets more money out of this than they have in quantum lost, I am comfortable with that, as I believe is the Minister. It is better putting it into their pockets than into the pockets of lawyers, who will take their time, with this adding to the trauma that these people will have in dealing with these cases over many years.
Let me turn to the Bill’s Horizon pilot scheme provisions, because we have to address not only the Horizon scheme but the pilots that came before it. Condition E for overturning a conviction in the Bill is that the “Horizon system” was being used at the time of the offence. Clause 8 makes provision in respect of
“any version of the computer system known as Horizon (and sometimes referred to as Legacy Horizon, Horizon Online or HNG-X) used by the Post Office”.
We know that there is a difference between those pilot schemes and the actual Horizon scheme that took over—I know that, having been able to recite some of these things in my sleep.
People used a Horizon pilot scheme in the north-east as early as 1996—one went on to be convicted and others lost their livelihoods and were made bankrupt. I recognise that 1996 is the start date in the Bill, but I checked the Post Office’s website again this morning and it says that the roll-out and pilots of the Legacy Horizon system, as referred to in the Bill as part of condition E, started in 1999. So what systems were people piloting in 1996? Were they piloting Legacy Horizon? If they were, that would be at odds with what is on the Post Office’s website. I would like the Minister to refer to that and provide clarification in his wind-up, as a lot of those cases were in the north-east of England, in the area I represent.
Let me turn to another system, one that was pre-Horizon: the Capture system. As I understand it, it was software developed by the Post Office itself. I came across it through a case that had been referred to me. Given all the publicity about the Horizon scheme, it amazed me that the Post Office did not come clean and say, “Oh, by the way, we had Horizon, pre-Horizon and the Capture system beforehand.” If we look at the cases, we see that this was very much because of the attitude of the Post Office towards the prosecutions. We had sub-postmasters who were accused of stealing money and their contracts were terminated. In some cases, they were prosecuted. There was a ridiculous situation in Coventry, where a woman was taken to court and prosecuted. The judge threw out the case on the first day, saying there was no case to answer, but lo and behold, what did the Post Office do? It took a private prosecution against her to recover the £30,000 it claimed she had stolen, which bankrupted her. That shows the mentality of those in the Post Office.
A lot of those cases mirror Horizon cases. I have referred 10 cases to the Minister, five of which relate to individuals who went to prison. As I have done before, I put on record the excellent reporting by Karl Flinders of Computer Weekly and Steve Robson of the i newspaper on those cases. It has been down to me, those two and others to do the detective work, so we need the Post Office to turn up the heat and ensure we get answers. Will the Minister tell the Post Office that it is not a good idea to threaten legal action against journalists? This week, after his latest story, Steve received a phone call threatening him with legal action. That is not very bright, especially as he had all the evidence to back up his story. If that is still the attitude of the Post Office, that shows why the current management need to go.
I understand why the Government cannot include Capture in this legislation, but we need a mechanism to deal with those cases because Capture is important. I have 10 cases, but there are clearly more out there. Clause 7 gives the Secretary of State powers to make “further consequential provision” by regulation. Will that provide a potential way to include Capture cases? The Minister has all the information and he is on top of the brief. I raise the issue today and I will propose an amendment in Committee to see whether we can flesh out the matter, but we need a way to deal with those cases. I have 10 cases, but there are certainly more out there.
Sir David Davis
I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has raised that point. I referred in my speech to the 2013 BAE study that highlighted Capture, ATM cash management and a variety of other issues associated with audit failure, and basically described a chaotic management system. Earlier postmasters may not have been exonerated by subsequent analysis because people were looking at Horizon and nothing else, but we owe it to them to get this right, even if that is after this Bill has moved through the House.
Mr Jones
People might think that because the system is not Horizon, the Bill does not apply to them, but the cases I am dealing with show that there was an injustice. I have spoken to individuals who went to prison. The computer systems were not same, but the Post Office showed the same attitude in the way it went at individuals. It did not believe the postmasters—they were going to be found guilty, come what may.
Paul Scully
That approach to the investigation and the presumption of guilt was what my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) was referring to in relation to her constituents and Royal Mail, as it was before ownership had transferred. The case did not get as far as prosecution, but investigation officers, the same kind of people that we have seen at the public inquiry, made that presumption.
Mr Jones
I have seen some of those individuals at first hand at the public inquiry. People have said that everyone who is going to make a case has come out of the woodwork already, but that is not true. People are still coming forward. I am hearing about cases on a weekly cases. I thank right hon. and hon. Members from across the House who are keeping me busy by referring cases to me. Please send them to me—I am quite happy to help deal with them. I noticed this morning that there are another three cases in my inbox. The hon. Gentleman makes the key point that we need to look at those individuals to ensure we get some type of justice for them. I have to say that I was surprised by this, but, following the television programme, nearly 1,000 new cases came forward on the Horizon shortfall scheme alone. We may wonder what these people were doing all this time. Well, in some cases, they were not aware of what was happening. In other cases—
Mr Jones
They were hiding, yes, because of shame and things such as that. It is only now that we realise what a massive miscarriage of justice this was that people have had the confidence to come forward. This Bill will help with that.
I shall come off Capture, because I think the Minister has got my point, but I return to those cases that have already gone to appeal. I do not criticise the Government on this, but we must find a system for dealing with those few cases that have gone through. It is no good the Court of Appeal hiding behind the fact that they have gone through, because, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam has said, new evidence has come out of the inquiry that was not available to the courts at the time. We cannot just leave those people hanging—I cannot remember off the top of my head how many individuals there are, but there are not that many.
Kevin Hollinrake
Let me just clarify that point. A total of 1,200 people have come forward since the TV dramatisation. Seven people have taken their case to the Court of Appeal and been heard, and six have been refused leave to appeal, which makes a total of 13 in that cohort.
Mr Jones
What a fine research assistant the Minister is! He is right: the number is in single figures. Let us look at those cases. Let us see whether we can move forward on this. I am not criticising the Government for not including those individuals. I understand why they are not in the Bill, but we need to look at them. There are things that came out of the inquiry that would have changed the outcome in some, but perhaps not all, of those cases. If we do not look at them, those people will be left outside the remit of the Bill.
On the territorial extent of the Bill, I think the case was made earlier in relation to Northern Ireland. I see no reason why the Bill should not include Northern Ireland. We have cross-party support for it in Northern Ireland, and, as I understand it, the Executive are on board as well. We need to recognise that in Committee. I have to say to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) that I have less sympathy with the idea of including Scotland in the Bill. Not because those individuals should not get justice—they should—but because the issue is different in Scotland. There are, in fact, two issues. First, there is the legal position: the way things are prosecuted in Scotland is very different from how it is done in the UK. Furthermore, there is a mechanism to do it, so the Scottish Government just have to get on and do it. I accept what she is saying about waiting to see what we do, but they would need cross-party support in the Scottish Parliament if that were to go forward. I do hope, however, that some amendment on Northern Ireland is brought forward in Committee, and I would certainly support it.
Finally, let me talk about the notification of individuals. Reference was made earlier to record keeping, which was not brilliant at the Post Office. We have to try to find “reasonable steps”, as the Bill says, to notify individuals. We need to look at that, because, again, some of these cases will be legacy cases. Sadly, some people will have passed away before they were able to get justice. Perhaps we need to say how we get to those cases that are possibly more difficult to get to than others.
To conclude, the Bill is long overdue, which makes this a historic day. I think of the woman I sat in front of in her council flat in the north-east of England, whose life has been ruined for the past 20 years, and who has had daily trauma because of the injustice and financial heartache that she and her family have faced. With the Bill, she will finally get justice; if that is the one thing I do in my time in this House, it will make me very happy.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
It is a great honour to follow the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and that poignant ending, with which we all empathise. He has done an enormous amount get us to this point, and I thank him for it. There is no doubt that today is a very good day. It has been brought about by the Secretary of State, Ministers past and present—they are not show ponies at all—the Prime Minister, particularly through his actions at the beginning of this year, and the chair of the APPG, the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). I have worked with her many times, and I thank her for all her work.
All those people must take credit for where we are, but it has taken an awfully long time. The Minister was right that an awful lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to get to this moment. Equally, I have total empathy with the comments I receive from members of the public that it should not have taken the turbocharging of an ITV drama to put right this scandal when people across the United Kingdom knew that the situation was utterly wrong. I sometimes wish that there was as much palpable anger in our communities about other scandals as there is about what has happened to sub-postmasters, so that we could fix some of those problems.
Let us not be too critical, however. We should applaud today’s lifting of the barriers, by quashing convictions, to speed up the compensation that is due to people. As has rightly been said across the House, the judiciary will raise concerns. That is only to be expected, but I conceptualise this as an unprecedented situation that requires an unprecedented solution. The odd conviction that was warranted may slip through the net, but this has been going on for more than 15 years. As has also been said, we must not let perfection be the enemy of the good; that sums up the whole predicament and issue fairly well.
Being a new MP in this place—albeit not such a new MP any more—and being able, by quite some accident, to talk about the matter with a degree of personal feeling has been a great privilege. I never expected that in 2014 I would become a sub-postmaster for a company that had purchased a supermarket with a post office in the back of it, or that in 2015 Budgens of Aylsham, which was the post office that I was the sub-postmaster for, would become the best post office in the entire country. I am very proud of that, and it has meant that my speaking about this issue has picked up quite a lot of attention. It has been a real privilege to bring my voice to the campaigning. I suspect that I will probably be the only serving MP who has been a sub-postmaster for the foreseeable future.
What brings the debate home to me is that I could so easily have been caught up in this problem. Had we purchased that supermarket a couple of years beforehand, I could have been suffering the consequences faced by so many of the men and women we are representing this afternoon. I still remember my stepfather wandering into my office and saying, “Well, you’re the finance director, Duncan. You will be the nominated legal sub-postmaster.” We thought very little of it, other than when I was given a postman’s hat at the staff Christmas party. I remember going on the Post Office training courses. Without a shadow of a doubt, the people I met were always good, decent, law-abiding citizens—the sort of people we saw in the drama documentary and about whom we have spoken so often. Every single one of us in the Chamber this afternoon will have constituents who have been caught up in this matter.
The right hon. Member for North Durham talked about people being traumatised; that is absolutely true. In the past three or four weeks, I have sat with a lady who ran a post office in my constituency. She said, “Duncan, I have seen you on the television. Will you come round and talk to me? I was running a village post office. I haven’t been able to sleep for years because I lost money, and I want to know whether I could be recompensed.” The Minister was incredibly helpful. He immediately gave me all the links for where I could help that lady. She and I sat down and went through her books and records for the best part of an hour, totting up a few of her columns. At the end of that process, I said, “I want you to sleep better tonight. I do not think you have lost any money; I think that you are one of the lucky ones. You may have had some losses in one year but gains the next because the system just did not work.”
Mr Jones
We need to get that message out. I have quite a few cases in which people were not prosecuted, but they put money—a lot, in some cases—back in. The hon. Gentleman just spoke about ensuring that people come forward to get redress, and that is important. Some feel that they are not victims because they were not prosecuted or did not lose their livelihoods, but I have one case in which someone put in £80,000 over a period, and those people need redress.
Duncan Baker
The right hon. Member is absolutely right. The people watching this debate, or reading a report about it, must always remember that they can come forward, seek redress, and get help and support. If all else fails, contact your local MP. Most of us just want to help the communities and the people we are so privileged to represent. I entirely take his point.
I was very lucky in the case of the woman I was dealing with. I could say, “You can sleep easy tonight, because you are one of the lucky ones. The system did not work properly.” That closure—being told that—lifted a weight off her shoulders. We in this place often have the ability to open doors that people cannot open themselves. I was so pleased to be able to help.
That lady represents what we keep talking about. Sub-postmasters and mistresses were pillars of their community. Everybody in their village or town knows that those people were criminalised and simply not believed. That is where the whole of this sorry period started. In the business that I ran, I remember being incredibly worried, when the tills went down, that we had lost money. I knew one thing for sure: the staff were not taking money. I trusted them entirely.
The problem was the culture at the Post Office, which had become a corporate beast. It was losing its soul in the early 2010s, when there was an enormous push to be a stand-alone organisation, to not be reliant on the Government, and to sell, sell, sell financial products. I remember going to a 2016 Post Office conference and meeting Paula Vennells. The irony is that the conference was called “Together”, but while it was going on, hundreds of men and women up and down the country were being convicted for crimes that they had not committed. That is not very collegiate.
The legislation may not be perfect.There are Department for Work and Pensions convictions that I have taken up with the Minister that are not included in the Bill, and I know the reasons why—or his explanations. That does not mean that I do not support what we are doing today, but I certainly want to say this: we are not there yet. I think this whole situation is going to run and run for many years to come.
I do not say that light-heartedly, because I think that real closure for people up and down the country does not just mean compensation and convictions being quashed; it means criminal prosecutions of those within the Post Office who knew what had happened, but did not take the actions that they should have taken. I suspect we will see those prosecutions come forward in the years to come. I have probably said seven or so times in this place that Fujitsu needs to face some real questions. Of course, it will—it has already accepted that it will contribute compensation—but how on earth could a piece of software written by a multibillion-pound corporation have had a back door into it with no audit trail, through which somebody could simply alter figures? That is absolutely frightening. As I mentioned before, it prompts questions about the accounts of the Post Office and its auditors. So many problems will never be fixed.
As I have also said many times, I want a figure for how much money was stolen from all of those innocent sub-postmasters. Nobody has ever been able to tell me what that figure is.
Duncan Baker
Or even where it went. We could add up the figures that were taken off innocent men and women in the ITV drama alone, but across the country, I suspect it was tens of millions of pounds—possibly even more than £100 million. That figure needs to be identified, so that we understand the full scale of what happened here. Of course, the inquiry will conclude later this year, which will finally give us some real evidence of what went wrong.
Although I have summed up by saying there are still many questions to answer, we must remember that today is a very positive day for many, many people who are watching who were caught up in this situation. I say again, and place it on the record, that it is nice when the House comes together. There are a great number of people in the Chamber this afternoon who have done an enormous amount of good, and can hold their heads very high that we have got to this place today.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
First, I welcome this piece of legislation and thank the current Minister, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake); the former Minister, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully); and the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who guided me through some of the issues when I first became involved in this matter. It has been a long battle, but the job of this House when it identifies an injustice is to ensure that that injustice is addressed, and this was an injustice.
I am still baffled by how we ever reached this stage—how Post Office officials, Ministers and judges did not question how people who had so much to lose suddenly turned into thieves in their tens and hundreds. This did not happen over a long period of time. It was identified over a short period of time, yet those people were prosecuted unquestioningly. Indeed, some who knew the facts felt that because they had started going down this route, they had to continue to justify it, even if that meant withholding information and pretending that it was only one or two people so that others were not alerted to what was happening. It was an injustice.
I have heard arguments today that we have to tread very carefully with this legislation—that it is very delicate, that it could annoy the judges, and everything else. As the right hon. Member for North Durham has pointed out, the judges were also responsible, because they heard evidence. Did they question it as rigorously as they ought to have done? I do not know—I do not know many of the individual cases—but it is quite clear that many similar cases were coming before the courts, and somebody should have asked, especially given that the people who were being brought before those courts had so much to lose. Their reputation was destroyed, and up until this point, they had not engaged in that kind of behaviour.
I am not all that sensitive about stepping on some judicial toes with this legislation. This House has on many occasions been quite happy to overlook some of the legal issues in the context of Northern Ireland—exonerating, or giving letters of comfort to, people who had been guilty of murder, and so on—so I do not really have a great deal of sympathy with the argument that we have to be very concerned to tread carefully in relation to this piece of legislation.
There are just two issues that I want to raise. The first is the issue of those who have gone through the Court of Appeal already or have had their leave to appeal rejected. Given that, in most cases, the evidence that was presented and the judgments that were made would have been made on the basis, or at least partly on the basis, of trust in technology—the very thing we are saying was wrong in the cases of those we are now seeking to exonerate—means that we should be looking at those cases. Whether or not they are dealt with on a one-to-one basis, they should not be ignored, because the same kind of evidence used in those appeal cases was used in the court cases. Again, it would be an injustice not look at those particular issues. Regardless of how that is dealt with, and whether we should include the appeal cases totally or they should be looked at individually, I think we cannot ignore that one.
Of course, the issue I really want to address is clause 9 on the territorial extent of this Bill. I have had conversations with the Minister, and I know he is sympathetic and understands the issues in relation to Northern Ireland. However, when I listen to the arguments, I really do not think there is a case for excluding Northern Ireland from the scope of the Bill. Yes, justice is a devolved issue, and the Minister has said on other occasions when I have raised this with him that we have to be very careful of the political sensitivities. However, I have to say that there was not much concern in this House about political sensitivities when we put through a list of Bills the length of my arm that were controversial. People in Northern Ireland did not want those Bills taken in this House, and the parties were divided on them.
In this particular case, there is no division and there will be no kickback from any party in the devolved Administration. In fact, the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the Justice Minister—the three Ministers who will be responsible for this—have all written to the Minister indicating that they would be fully supportive. They would be fully supportive because they believe that it would not be possible to keep in step with the timing of the legislation that will go through here, and the reason for that is quite clear. It is the way in which the Northern Ireland Assembly is obliged by law to consult on legislation.
I do not even know whether the legislation would first have to be included in the programme for government, which would be one step, and after it had been included in the programme for government, consulted on. However, even if it we only have it as stand-alone legislation outside the programme for government, there is a 12-week consultation period. As the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister have pointed out, that means legislation could not even be considered in the Northern Ireland Assembly this side of the summer recess, so we would be talking about the autumn. There is a compelling case not only because there is no opposition, but because, if it were to go down the route of the Northern Ireland Assembly, it would be delayed.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that the number of cases is small—I have heard different figures, but we are talking about no more than 30 cases—but that cannot justify the delay, which he is eloquently describing, in keeping these people from their recourse to justice?
Sammy Wilson
I think that is right. Some people may, of course, turn that argument around and say, “It’s only a small number of cases, so why should we be concerned?” But although the number may be small, since this issue has become so public there is public outrage on behalf of those who have been unfairly treated. Many people who have spoken to me about this have not been affected personally by the Horizon scandal, but there is a sense of injustice that some people were affected in such a way—they lost their reputation, their money, their business, in some cases their families, and their peace of mind—and there is a need not to delay any longer if at all possible. One way of ensuring that there is no such delay is to include Northern Ireland in the Bill.
When the Secretary of State was asked about this issue she said that she wanted to avoid unintentional consequences. Those unintentional consequences were unspecified because we did not get any examples, but I do not see how there could be unintentional consequences from including Northern Ireland in the Bill. It is a tight piece of legislation. It specifies who is covered by it, what offences are covered, and the way that the exoneration would be implemented by having records removed and so on. I cannot see where the unintended consequences would be, and I find that argument fairly weak.
Chris Stephens
The hon. Gentleman has described the logistical problems. Does he agree that if the territorial provisions were extended to Scotland and Northern Ireland, all that would be required are legislative consent motions from the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, which would be a cleaner and more efficient way of dealing with this issue for people in Northern Ireland and Scotland?
Sammy Wilson
I am not even sure that in Northern Ireland a legislative consent motion would be required, simply because the Executive has already indicated that they would be happy for Northern Ireland to be included. I do not see how this would tramp on any political sensitivities, and it cannot have unintended consequences.
Another argument has been, “But look, you’re going to upset the judiciary.” In my view it doesn’t matter whether the judiciary are upset by a decision made in this House or in the Assembly. If they are going to be upset, they are going to be upset. I suspect they will not be, however, because I am sure that many of the judges recognise that in the light of evidence that has now become available, the decisions made have to be looked at again anyway. I do not think there is an argument there.
Another argument that was made, I think by an Opposition Member, is that politicians in devolved Administrations should take the risk and take responsibility for the job they are required to do. I do not mind politicians taking responsibility for things they have been responsible for, but this was not an issue that politicians in Northern Ireland, or indeed Scotland, were responsible for. The Post Office was not a devolved issue; it was reserved. The prosecutions were initiated by actions taken by the Post Office. To say, “You’ve got to man up and take responsibility”—I am not so sure that that argument stands when this is a national issue. The Post Office is organised on a national basis, and the compensation will be organised on a national basis. Therefore, to me there is no responsibility there for the devolved Administrations.
Mr Carmichael
As a matter of fact, the situation is different in Scotland, where prosecutions are taken in the name of the Procurator Fiscal Service or the Lord Advocate, depending on the forum, and they receive only the report from the Post Office. The prosecution decision is made by the prosecuting authorities. I understand that in other parts of the United Kingdom the Post Office can prosecute in its own right, but that is not the situation in Scotland and that is why it is different.
Sammy Wilson
I am not going to enter into a debate about Scotland, because I do not have enough knowledge of the situation, but surely the way around this issue relates to the individuals responsible for having taken the prosecutions and for advising the Scottish Government. That is perhaps where we should be looking. If they are all satisfied that the decision should be taken here in Westminster, why not include that in the Bill? I am sure the Scottish nationalists can argue their case very well.
The one thing I would say as a Unionist is that I am pleased that the SNP recognises that there is a role for Westminster. If the Scottish Government want to give some of their powers to Westminster on this particular issue, I will take that as a Unionist win.
Marion Fellows
The fact is that the Scottish Government want the Bill to go through for all four nations of the UK, and they would give a legislative consent motion for that to happen. That surely indicates that in this case, as the right hon. Member has already said, this issue arose here and should be sorted out here. In Scotland and in England, there were prosecutions by the CPS; the prosecutions that this place will exonerate through the Bill are not only Post Office prosecutions.
Sammy Wilson
I am not going to become a kind of spokesperson for the Scottish National party on this particular issue; I am arguing the case for Northern Ireland, but I also believe there is a parallel. I know that there will be differences, and we have heard the arguments back and forward today as to why Scotland might be treated differently and everything else, but there is a sour taste in people’s mouths because of the injustice over the Horizon scandal. Let us not let that persist.
If there is a way of sweetening the issue and dealing with it respectfully, impacting on everybody and ensuring that those who have had this cloud hanging over them—those who have lost out financially and in many other ways—can be exonerated and sorted out, let us do it quickly and fairly and ensure that we put this injustice behind us as quickly as we can.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). He says that he is proud as a Unionist to see this decision being taken here, but I say to him gently: be wary of Scottish nationalists bearing gifts of UK accountability, because essentially that is where we have come to today. I will pick up the point about territorial jurisdiction later, but I first want to say a word or two of more general application.
A lot of people in this debate have spoken about this legislation being unprecedented and about the concerns of some in the legal profession and the judiciary and the discomfort they feel. Those feelings of discomfort are entirely appropriate and legitimate, and I would be more concerned if they were not there. However, it is because of the wholly exceptional nature of the situation facing those prosecuted as a consequence of the deception of the Post Office and Fujitsu and the misuse of the Horizon software that we should have a Bill of this sort. I, along with my colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches, have no difficulty in supporting the Bill.
I should declare an interest as a recovering solicitor: it is 22-and-a-half years since I surrendered my practising certificate, no doubt to the relief of many. To my former colleagues I would say that it is worth asking why we have courts in the first place. Essentially, we have courts because it is important that there are bodies able to give the general public confidence that the various vehicles of the state work properly and that people can get justice. Do they get it right all the time? No, of course they do not. When I was a solicitor, we often used to say, “Justice has to be seen to be done, and it often has to be seen to be believed.”
Let us not forget that the judiciary are like the rest of us; if they are cut, they bleed. They are vulnerable to the same human foibles as us. They ultimately have to be accountable for people at moments like this. Those who have said that the judiciary need to take a look at themselves are right to say that. I take mild exception to the suggestion that somehow or another the doctrine of the separation of powers builds an impenetrable wall between the different legs of the constitution. It does not.
This House created the very institution of the Supreme Court barely 20 years ago. We interfere all the time in the running of the courts by setting their budgets and telling them what rules of procedure and evidence they can follow, and nobody takes exception to that. What we are dealing with here is an interference of a different order altogether, but it is one that conforms to the principle that there are occasions when this House, as a sovereign Parliament, has to act and intervene. I think the nature and scale of the injustices that have been visited on people here absolutely justify that.
The question about territorial jurisdiction is an important one. I listened very carefully to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who, incidentally, I rate very highly—at the risk of killing her political career stone dead by praise. I have enormous respect for how she has managed the all-party parliamentary group on post offices and the very measured and effective way she has prosecuted the case for postmasters, sub-postmasters and Post Office employees. That applies not just in relation to the Horizon scandal, but in the day-to-day operation of the Post Office itself.
It pains me to find myself in a different place from the hon. Lady. I said to her last night that I am still open to be persuaded, but my starting point has to be that we judge the issue by the outcomes for the postmasters themselves. Essentially, can we get those affected in Scotland to the same place by allowing the Scottish Parliament to do its job, constitutionally as it is charged to do, or, in order to get everybody in the same place at the same time, do we have to do it here?
Chris Stephens
To kill the right hon. Gentleman’s political career, I should say that I have the same respect as he has for my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). As he said, this debate is about how we can best get justice to the victims. Can I offer as a solution something that is happening now? The Criminal Justice Bill, which has not reached all stages of the parliamentary process, already has a legislative consent motion from the Scottish Parliament for the areas of the Bill that impact Scotland. Perhaps that is a way of getting around the territorial debate. If Scotland and Northern Ireland were put there, it would allow legislative consent both in Northern Ireland and Scotland to happen concurrently, at the same time as the legislation is passing here.
Mr Carmichael
That is one way in which the procedure could be done. However, I say to the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw that the question of quashing convictions is just one element of justice. The other important element is that those who were responsible for initiating the prosecutions must be accountable. That accountability would be missing if the provisions for Scotland were put in this Bill or the Criminal Justice Bill. That accountability is important for the quality of justice, if it is achievable within the timescale; we are balancing competing demands.
The position of Northern Ireland is qualitatively different because there is a statutory requirement for a 12-week consultation. The Scottish Parliament does not have that requirement, so it would be able to proceed.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Ind)
I apologise for not being here at the beginning, as I was chairing the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. The other leg of justice that must be served is compensation, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman was coming to anyway. Compensation is not just for those who were convicted, as a lot of people out there dipped into their own pockets and paid money to the Post Office to keep the heavies away and prevent prosecution. Those people also need to see justice. One of the big things is moving the legislation forward so that all that happens and the money gets to the people.
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman is right. If he has been listening, he will have heard me speak on a number of occasions about my work to support constituents who are pursuing claims as part of the historic shortfall scheme. That would be the route to compensation for the people to whom the hon. Gentleman refers.
We have taken a particular approach quite deliberately and for good reason. Because the Post Office function is reserved legislatively to the United Kingdom Parliament, as a United Kingdom operation, the compensation should be paid on a UK-wide basis. However, the decisions to prosecute were taken in Scotland, by law officers accountable to the Scottish Parliament. For that reason, it makes sense for the Scottish Parliament to deal with the consequences of those prosecutions.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I do not necessarily have the answer, but the problem is that if the Scottish Parliament quashes the prosecutions, there could be a hiatus while we wait for Westminster to do something and the money arrives. It is a chicken and egg situation. I would much prefer the Scottish Parliament to sort it and to have the resources to compensate, but unfortunately in the UK that is not the world we live in.
Mr Carmichael
I do not think it is unfortunate, but highly fortunate and deliberate, that we are in the UK, but we will save that debate for another day. The compensation can and will be paid on a UK-wide basis. Given the timescale that the Government have outlined so far, we would expect the convictions to be quashed on the basis of this Bill by the middle of July. That gives the Scottish Parliament time to meet the same timescales, so that victims in Scotland have their cases quashed by that time.
Kevin Hollinrake
The right hon. Gentleman is making some important points about the way the prosecution systems work in different parts of the UK, which we must take into account. On the point by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) on paying redress, the key thing is overturning the conviction. Once that conviction is overturned, wherever in the UK, that individual will have immediate access to the redress scheme wherever they are in the UK. There is no hiatus, as he described it.
Mr Carmichael
I am grateful to the Minister for that. Those who are not convicted will have access to compensation through the historic shortfall scheme—a process available to them at the moment.
Kevin Hollinrake
The Bill relates only to overturning convictions. There is a discussion about territorial extent, which I understand and am happy to continue to discuss. The three compensation schemes—the Horizon shortfall scheme, the group litigation order scheme and the overturned conviction scheme—are all UK-wide, so that whatever detriment is experienced, wherever they are in the UK, there is no delay to compensation. There is no difference, in terms of compensation, between one part of the UK and another. We are keen to expedite it wherever it is in the UK and we have work to do.
Mr Carmichael
I do not really need to answer that, so I will take the hon. Lady’s intervention.
Marion Fellows
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. One of the issues about timing, and it is about timing, is that I think everyone would agree that it is best that every victim is exonerated at the same time. As we do not yet have the programme for the timing of the Committee and Third Reading stages, it is possible that the Scottish Parliament could be in recess. It will be in recess as early as 29 June, a full month before this place.
Mr Carmichael
That is a political decision for the Scottish Government, who control the Scottish Parliament’s business, to take.
Marion Fellows
May I gently correct the right hon. Gentleman? The recess dates are not set by the Scottish Government; they are set by the parliamentary board.
Mr Carmichael
They are set by the Parliamentary Bureau, of which the majority of members come from the SNP and the Greens. I have kept this fairly broad in its terms. Can I just say gently to the hon. Lady that if the Scottish Government, instead of trying to evade political accountability, would take their responsibilities seriously and get on with it, they would get on with the drafting of the necessary legislation? If they want to wait and see how it all works here, to see if there are further amendments, then of course they can do so. They should be mindful of the fact that, apart from this one point, on the substantive provisions in the Bill there is complete unanimity across all parties in the House. So I would not see this as a Bill that is likely to attract amendment on the substance.
If the hon. Lady wishes to introduce her amendments relating to jurisdiction at a later stage, then that is another matter altogether. If we consider the consequences for the substance of the Bill, we would effectively be writing a whole new part of it. For example, if we have regard to the offences for which compensation is to be paid, very few are terms of art in Scots law, so we would be writing a new Bill to be inserted here.
Why are the Scottish Government so resistant to getting on and doing what they are constitutionally charged to do, when they could do it if they started now, in a timescale that brings everybody to the same place? The hon. Lady herself said that compensation had to be done equitably and fairly. I put it to her and to her colleagues that the consequence of their route being followed would be Scottish victims having justice of a lesser quality, because the decisions about prosecution are accountable to this House in England, and there would be no such accountability for decisions on prosecution if they were to be taken in the Scottish Parliament.
Mr Carmichael
Can the hon. Gentleman sitting to my left explain to me why he thinks that is not true?
Chris Stephens
I will—and I am always to his left, as he knows. If the Parliament discusses legislative consent, that is where the accountability takes place. I say to the right hon. Gentleman again—he does not need to answer it today, because the Bill will go through other stages and the Minister said he is considering it—that I hope he will consider the Criminal Justice Bill example and legislative consent as a solution to the issue.
Mr Carmichael
It is a solution to the issue inasmuch as it is another means of doing the same thing that the hon. Gentleman’s party wants to do in respect of the Bill, but it is not a solution inasmuch as it allows that level of accountability, and it is the accountability that matters.
The current Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain, has already said, on the record, that
“not every case involving Horizon evidence will be a miscarriage of justice and each case must be considered carefully and with regard to the law. It is also important to recognise”
—as others have said here—
“the important…constitutional role of our Appeal Court in Scotland and that due process must be followed.”
That is a qualitatively different approach from the one that is at the heart of the Bill. The Lord Advocate may be right, but that is where she has to explain herself; and she also has to explain the decisions that were taken by her predecessors. It is 30 years ago now, but I did start my legal career, meagre and modest though it may have been, at the Crown Office in Edinburgh. Elish Angiolini, whom we were fêting here a week or two ago for her report on the workings of the Metropolitan police, was my first boss when I was a trainee solicitor there. My second boss was Frank Mulholland—now Lord Mulholland —the second Lord Advocate who would have had responsibility for some of these cases. All of them will have to be accountable in their own way.
The current Lord Advocate will of course be accountable, and it is obvious from the statement she gave to the Scottish Parliament that her work is already fairly well advanced. She has confirmed that the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission wrote to 73 potential victims of the Horizon scandal in 2020. She has also confirmed that the Crown Office has identified another 54 cases that are being reviewed by prosecutors, and that many of those cases have been contacted by the SCCRC as well. As of March 2024, 19 people have come forward to have their cases reviewed. Eight of them have been referred to court, with six having their cases cleared. The remaining two cases are still pending an outcome.
Given the amount of work that has been done and given the nature of what the Lord Advocate has said on the record, it makes, to my mind, absolutely no sense for the Scottish elements of this one narrow part—on the decisions to prosecute—to be taken differently. It comes down to accountability, and if we have learned nothing else throughout this whole sorry episode of the Horizon system and Post Office Ltd, surely we have learned that, at the end of the day, accountability makes a difference.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). I will return the conversation to the subject of Northern Ireland, but only briefly, because the issues have been aired reasonably well already today.
Let me first put on the record my own and my party’s welcome for the Bill, and thank the Minister for the work that he has done so far. We certainly recognise that this is a highly exceptional situation that justifies the approach that has been taken. We cannot be certain that we will never face a similar situation at some time in the years or decades ahead, but this situation does warrant that approach, because it is about exoneration, and concepts such as pardons do not quite fit the bill. It should be clearly on the record that there should never have been prosecutions, and that any convictions should be entirely void. The words “amnesty” and “pardon” suggest that something wrong had been done prior to those developments.
I thank the Minister for his ongoing engagement, specifically in respect of the conversations I have had with him about Northern Ireland. I also thank the Opposition Front Benchers for making it clear that they are open to the inclusion of Northern Ireland in the Bill.
I want to explain briefly why we believe that action is warranted in Westminster in that regard. This is, essentially, a UK-wide scandal that requires a UK-wide solution. The Post Office is a reserved matter, so we need a UK-wide response. The issues that have come about were not in the gift or control of the devolved Administrations, who could not have sought to prevent them, even if they had had the foresight to identify the problems that were emerging.
The difficulty now is that if Northern Ireland is left to act separately, we will see further injustice emerge. The Executive have just been restored, and they have other priorities at present, such as getting up and running. However, even if the Assembly had been functioning for some time, the process would require a public consultation on how business is done in Northern Ireland. Not carrying out such a consultation would pose the ongoing risk of a judicial review, which would further complicate matters and probably elongate the process. That would be counterproductive, so the public consultation has to be priced in.
A Bill will take time to draft, and the Department of Justice can look at what has happened in England and Wales, but there would still need to be a minimum of eight weeks—in practice, probably 12 weeks—for the public consultation. That would then have to be evaluated, and any legislation introduced in the Assembly would go through its own process. Even with the best will in the world, I do not see how the process could be concluded until well into the autumn of this year, and it could take longer. That would create a situation in which some of the victims of the scandal who have received false convictions will be waiting longer for justice than their counterparts everywhere else in the UK. Given that exoneration is the gateway to compensation, they would be further penalised, in the sense that they would be doubly delayed—in receiving exoneration and in accessing compensation—so natural justice leans heavily towards the Administration in London taking action on behalf of Northern Ireland.
In response to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), I want to stress the scale of the political consensus on this issue in Northern Ireland. That is rare, but it is precious whenever it does emerge. There is a sense that we want this to be done as quickly as possible, and we want to be pragmatic. I utterly dismiss the notion that Parliament is treading on devolved toes by acting in place of the Executive and the Assembly. Right across the political spectrum, the parties want this to happen, so there will be no political blowback on action being taken. Obviously, it has to be done on a case-by-case basis, but given the extraordinary circumstances of this situation, there is an overwhelming argument for Northern Ireland to be included in the Bill.
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s summation shortly. I hope that he can give an indication of whether he is willing to accept amendments in Committee, subject to the proper motions being put in place to facilitate changes to the legislation as currently drafted.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
We are now over two decades into this scandal, with the victims still suffering the ongoing consequences of this injustice: unjust prison sentences, bankruptcy, ostracisation from communities, family breakdown and homelessness. Tragically, as we have heard, this scandal has led to some people taking their lives. According to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, at least 60 sub-postmasters had died without seeing justice or receiving compensation as of 10 August 2023, and at least four had taken their own lives. All our thoughts continue to be with their families.
This scandal has been a seismic tragedy at every stage. The mental toll and stress that victims have faced is beyond what many of us can begin to comprehend. This scandal has been defined at every turn by an abuse of power, disregard for sub-postmasters’ lives, the passing of blame and perpetual delay.
This Bill is an important step forward in addressing the greatest miscarriages of justice in our country. It will mean that hundreds of innocent victims will have their rightful innocence returned to them. However, this is just one of a number of actions that need to be taken to make amends and to correct this terrible injustice. We need to see convictions quashed, compensation delivered urgently and justice sought from the independent inquiry.
Along with other colleagues, I pay tribute to Alan Bates and the many sub-postmasters who have campaigned and worked tirelessly to see justice. This Bill marks an important victory for sub-postmasters, and I pay tribute to their bravery and perseverance in the face of so much suffering and adversity. They have had so much taken from them, and yet they have kept fighting. This is truly remarkable, and it is wonderful to hear the tributes that have been paid by so many across the House and also across our country.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for all his work fighting on behalf of sub-postmasters, and to Lord Arbuthnot for his years of work on tackling this injustice. I also thank the Minister for postal affairs, the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), for all his work, from the Back Benches as well as from the Front Bench. There have been many Members across the two Houses who have highlighted the injustice suffered by sub-postmasters, and I extend the Opposition’s appreciation for the work they have done and for the cross-party nature of the campaigning that has gone on thus far.
I think we can all agree that the influence of the ITV drama “Mr Bates vs the Post Office” has been very significant in this campaign. The Minister has done a huge amount of work, but there is no denying that that programme has brought to the attention of the wider public the scandal that has affected so many sub-postmasters. However, it should not have taken the release of that drama to get to where we are today. This is in no way a criticism; it is a recognition of the fact that certain scandals have needed that wider attention from the media, from programmes and documentaries, before attention is received. But we are where we are, and it is encouraging to see the steps that have been taken.
This Bill will quash the convictions of the sub-postmasters and others who worked in the Post Office branches who suffered as a result of the Horizon scandal. As has already been said, and I further stress, the quashing of these convictions must not set a precedent. The Bill undermines a key part of our democracy, the separation of the legislature and judiciary. As has been said earlier, it is a constitutional anomaly. We must understand the weight of this so that such action is never considered again. The legal solution of this Bill is a wholly exceptional and isolated case, where these necessary actions will be taken to match a miscarriage of justice unprecedented in both scale and impact. As the shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), has made clear, an incoming Labour Government would never use this kind of action again.
I echo the comments on the territorial scope of today’s Bill and restate that the Labour party supports the calls to extend the provisions of the Bill to the cases in Northern Ireland. Every party in Northern Ireland and every Minister in the new Assembly is calling for their inclusion in the Bill. Their exclusion will sadly only delay the exoneration of victims in Northern Ireland all the more, so I hope the Minister will seriously consider this decision and what can be done further, and take on board the points that have been made by hon. Members including my hon. Friend the shadow Business Secretary.
We have heard many powerful contributions in today’s debate, and there is broad agreement on the Bill’s necessity. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) highlighted his misgivings, and he described the Bill as representing
“the best of a bad job.”
Of course, he extended his support and highlighted the Bill’s unprecedented nature.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) made the case for speed in granting compensation. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) raised important concerns about the potential limitations of setting deadlines for paying compensation. While ensuring the proper handling of complex cases, I hope the Government will take those points into consideration.
My right hon. Friend also raised important points about the need for the judiciary and the Government to learn broader lessons from this scandal so that they can be applied to other scandals, a number of which have been mentioned in the debate, including the contaminated blood scandal and the Windrush scandal. It is encouraging to see such eagerness to reflect and learn so that things do not have to go this far before being addressed.
The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) has been a tireless advocate and campaigner for justice for sub-postmasters, and she rightly highlighted the need to continue our laser-sharp focus on supporting victims. She and others in her party relayed, once again, the concern that Scotland has been left out of the Bill.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) spoke powerfully about his time as postal affairs Minister. As he is standing down, I commend him for his work in the Department and for his wider cross-party work on a number of issues, including Myanmar with me and many other colleagues. We wish him well in his future endeavours. Like others, he raised the need to learn lessons and to ensure that, when we say that scandals of this scale must never happen again, we truly ensure that they never happen again.
The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) spoke powerfully about his career as a sub-postmaster. He brings insight to this debate and the campaign, and he reflected on how he has supported his constituent who has faced trauma, and how he has drawn those lessons into the Minister’s work. I was struck by the way in which he reflected on the wider issues.
The hon. Gentleman said that work is needed on the Post Office’s culture in tackling wider systemic issues, and he said that the Post Office is “losing its soul”. As we look to the future, I hope the Government will consider how we make the necessary reforms so that the Post Office is fit for purpose. He rightly said that Fujitsu needs to be held accountable, and that it should pay compensation. Although that is outside the scope of this Bill, the Minister and others need to ensure that Fujitsu pays for what was caused by its technological failures.
The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made a powerful case for those whose appeals have been rejected, and he argued that their cases need to be reconsidered. I know that the Minister has responded and will look at those issues closely. The right hon. Member also made the point about territorial scope, reinforcing the point about the need for Northern Ireland to be included in the Bill. The point about the 12-week consultation has been made consistently, as it means that the 27 or 30 Northern Irish cases will face huge delays. That means further suffering, so it is important for the Government to consider including Northern Ireland, as we have called for.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) made the case for the Scottish Government to introduce legislation in parallel in Scotland. Much work has been done in Scotland and the case for needing to work in parallel, in lockstep, to ensure that there are provisions in Scotland has been made. The hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) spoke about prosecutions that should never have taken place. Once again, he made the case for Northern Ireland’s inclusion and for avoiding delay.
We have heard many powerful testimonies from victims who have said that they lost decades of their lives to this scandal. Katie Downey, who set up the group Lost Chances for the Children of Sub-postmasters to support the children of some of the victims of the scandal, said that when her father was made bankrupt by the scandal she was 11 years old and her family had to flee to France. She stopped speaking for two years as a result of the trauma; her childhood was shaped by this injustice. We must not forget the wide-reaching impact of this scandal on family members. There are children, spouses, parents, close friends and neighbours who have not only journeyed with the victims, but suffered themselves and lived out the consequences of this injustice.
Seema Misra was jailed on her son’s 10th birthday, while she was pregnant, after being pronounced guilty of stealing £74,000 from the post office she ran—she had been wrongly accused. Ms Misra and her husband had been trying for a baby for eight years and what should have been one of the happiest moments of their lives became a nightmare. She was put under suicide watch in prison and describes how she reached “rock bottom”. Those are only two stories of the horrors that have defined the lives of victims.
Today, I thank colleagues from across the House for powerfully sharing the examples of the cases they have dealt with, be they those of constituents or cases they have come across through their campaigning work. I also thank colleagues for the tireless work they have done in advocating for those people, telling their stories, talking to Ministers and persisting. These people’s stories and voices must be central in shaping our next steps in the pursuit of their compensation, of justice and of their exoneration. We welcome this crucial piece of legislation, but it is by no means anywhere close to an end point. It is merely a further step in the right direction in securing justice for the sub-postmasters.
We support the work of the independent inquiry in uncovering the full and precise truth of all that has unfolded in the Post Office. Truth and justice has been denied to sub-postmasters at every turn, and I hope that the inquiry will finally provide the transparency that is desperately needed. There is much still to be done in the pursuit of justice for sub-postmasters, and we must all continue to support them and do all we can to right the many wrongs they have suffered.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Before I call the Minister, may I remind those who have contributed to the debate that it is very important to get back for the wind-ups, including for the beginning of the one by the shadow Minister? I call Kevin Hollinrake.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
For Members of the House, the wider public and, most of all, the victims of this horrendous scandal, today’s Bill cannot come soon enough. The day that the convictions are finally quashed, redress is finally paid and those victims can get on with their lives cannot come soon enough. The Bill will quash relevant convictions of individuals who worked, including on a voluntary basis, in post office branches and who suffered as a consequence of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. It will quash, on a blanket basis, convictions for various theft, fraud and related offences during the period of the Horizon scandal in England and Wales.
The Bill is an exceptional response that recognises the constitutional sensitivity and unprecedented nature of the situation. The Government are clear that given the factually exceptional nature of the case, the legislation does not set a precedent for the future relationship between the Executive, Parliament and the judiciary. The scale and circumstances of the prosecutorial and investigatory misconduct means that a rapid approach is needed to deliver long overdue justice, while respecting the separation of powers and delicate constitutional balance.
I first spoke on the matter from the Back Benches some years ago, in the context of other scandals involving the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Bank, after a gentleman called Paul Marshall, a barrister involved in the cases, wrote to me drawing parallels between the Post Office Horizon case and the banking scandal. It was back in March 2020 that I first spoke about the issue and Lee Castleton’s tragic case. Because of the scale of the injustice, the depth of the damage and the despair, and the unacceptable delays in delivering justice, we must act in this exceptional manner.
I will touch on points raised in contributions to the debate. I thank the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), for their collaborative approach. I join them in thanking one of my predecessors, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), on the tremendous job he did. We all wish him well in whatever he chooses to do in his new life, but I remind him that he still has work to do in this place because we have much work to do.
I gently push back on some of the points made by the shadow Minister, who said that the TV drama had stimulated the work that has gone on in recent weeks and today. We are public servants and we should respond to public outcry, so I welcome the new attention focused on the issue by the general public, the media and the House. However, I remind hon. Members and, most importantly, the victims that we put many measures in place to try to deal with the matter, not always as successfully or as quickly as we would have liked: the Horizon shortfall scheme and the inquiry, which started in 2020; the group litigation order compensation scheme; the Horizon compensation advisory board, on which the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) sits so effectively; and the £600,000 fixed-sum awards for those whose convictions had been overturned, which was put in place last autumn. The exploration into how we might overturn convictions more quickly began some months before the TV dramatisation came to our screens. Indeed, the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Act 2024 assigned a deadline date that proved difficult for some of the victims.
The shadow Secretary of State pointed to possible service level agreements, in response to issues raised by the Business and Trade Committee about timings for compensation. As he and the shadow Minister know, there are service level agreements in the current compensation and the group litigation order compensation schemes that say there will be a response to 90% of final claims submitted within 40 days. We are hitting 87% against that metric, so we are making progress. We are considering such agreements in elements of the new scheme and other schemes, so I will come back to the House about that.
The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde raised the point about Northern Ireland, as many other Members have, and we are taking that very seriously. We are sympathetic to the issue, particularly as the Assembly is newly formed. The requirement for public consultations in that jurisdiction may delay things, and we will bear that in mind in our deliberations.
The shadow Minister quite rightly raised the point about the impact of this not just on the victims, but on the victims’ families, their children and their spouses. Indeed, terrible things have happened to many of those families, including break-ups and suicides. We have all witnessed on our TV screens the extent of this problem. We will certainly consider mental health support for the affected individuals.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) talked about a sunset clause. Interestingly, following his intervention on a sunset clause, three other legal opinions on a similar matter did not all agree with his point. The key thing is that all convictions are quashed the day this legislation comes into effect, which should be in July. Irrespective of the fact that we may not have identified somebody in the list of people whom we will write to following the passing of this Bill, their conviction will have been quashed. If they come forward to self-certify and we look at their case, that conviction will have already been quashed; we just need to mark the record.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) spoke about political accountability, which I shall come back to a bit later, because he raises some very important points. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr David Davis) said that this matter should have been dealt with in the courtroom. I think that we would all have preferred to see that. I have described this process in the past as the lesser of two evils. We must acknowledge that the first of the 983 convictions were overturned in 2021. Thus far, only 102 convictions have been overturned. That pace of progress cannot be countenanced, which is why we have taken this particular approach. I thank him, though, for his kind words on my work, but I reiterate that the Secretary of State has been hugely supportive of everything that I have been asked to do and that I wanted to do in this space. The same applies to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and many other Ministers right across Government.
Let me turn now to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), for whom I have a great deal of time and with whom I have spent a great deal of time working on this issue. Her work on the all-party group on post offices is also invaluable. I fully understand her points about Scotland. She wants to ensure that her legislation works simultaneously with this legislation. We believe that that can happen in Scotland. There are no barriers as such with Scotland in the way that there are potentially with Northern Ireland. We also must bear in mind that the Lord Advocate tends to have a different opinion as to whether this is the right way to go about things. In taking this route, we have had to make some difficult political choices. One is to exclude cases that have been heard by the Court of Appeal. That is the decision that we had to take here—as I say, these were very difficult choices. The point about political accountability is important, which is why we decided to use this objective criteria route. The hon. Lady’s objective criteria would have to be different. For instance, Scotland has a different prosecutorial system, so the legislation cannot be identical. There are differences whichever way we look at this, so I am sure that this debate will continue.
Ian Paisley
I thank the Minister for giving way. He knows that we have huge admiration for the way that he has tried to wrestle his way through these issues. At the end of these proceedings, I intend to lay an instruction to the House motion. Is that necessary? Can the Minister tell us now that he will take this on and include Northern Ireland in the Bill?
Kevin Hollinrake
I understand the hon. Member’s point. I can tell him from this Dispatch Box that it is something on which we will continue to have dialogue. I have talked to his colleagues today and yesterday. In fact, I met the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the Justice Minister yesterday to discuss these matters. They raised some interesting points that we need to take into account. I am very happy to keep those conversations ongoing, so I will happily have a further conversation with him after this debate.
Chris Stephens
The Minister is showing his customary politeness and kindness. He has outlined the discussions with Northern Ireland. The main issue is how we get a solution that satisfies everyone across these islands, so will he also have those discussions with the Scottish Government, particularly around the territorial issue, and will he say something about Asda employees in Scotland who are also caught up in this?
Kevin Hollinrake
I absolutely give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. We want everything to happen simultaneously. Our ambition is to get the legislation passed by July. If people choose the fixed sum award route, we can pay compensation rapidly. They have two choices of route to take. The £600,000 can be delivered very quickly—literally within weeks of passing the legislation. We want to pass the legislation by July; we could be paying compensation as quickly as by August. Exactly the same thing can happen in Scotland if the Scottish Government effect the legislation at the same pace. My officials are working with officials of the SNP-led Government in Scotland on a weekly basis to try to ensure that that is the case. I have met with my counterpart in the Scottish Government to talk about this issue.
I did not quite get the hon. Gentleman’s point about employees. He might want to intervene on me again, so I can address it properly.
Chris Stephens
A number of Members have mentioned, as I have, the particular issue of Asda employees in Scotland. Has the Minister thought about that?
Kevin Hollinrake
Employees generally are an issue, because they do not have a contractual relationship with the Post Office, which is required to enter the compensation scheme, but if the company itself did have one it could make a compensation claim that could then be passed on to that individual. I am very happy to discuss individual cases with the hon. Gentleman, or with other Members.
I pay tribute again to all the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam. I agree that this was a case of human failure as well as technological failure, and that the wheels of justice are moving too slowly. That is why we have stepped in in this way. I am always grateful for the work of the right hon. Member for North Durham, not least on the Horizon compensation advisory board. He has made some important recommendations, which we have adopted. He gave a four-legged analogy about the person I am: he called me more shire horse than show pony, which I take as a compliment. I would describe him in a four-legged way as well: he is a cross between a terrier and a rottweiler, and he is highly effective in the way he approaches this issue.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about convictions relating to pilot versions of Horizon. That is why we have set the date at 23 December 1996. That is the first point of the roll-out of an application called Pathway, which was a predecessor Horizon application. We think that the legislation, and therefore the redress schemes, capture—if I can use that word—cases that relate to the pilot schemes in clause 8.
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we look at the Capture system slightly differently. Capture is a stand-alone spreadsheet rather than a network computer system. There is no remote access, for example. The key thing is that what we are doing here is exceptional and unprecedented. We have the body of evidence because it has been before a court. Part of the reason the court made its decision in 2019 was based on the Horizon issues, as it put it. We do not have that body of evidence with Capture. We are keen to talk to him to ensure that we look at the evidence. That conversation will continue.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about the power to make consequential provision. We do not see that as giving us the ability to include another group of people; there are different reasons why that power is in the Bill. It is for matters that are a consequence of the Bill, which we do not think is the right vehicle to include people, for example, who have been affected by the Capture system. As I say, we will continue to discuss that.
As I said earlier, we understand the arguments about Northern Ireland, and we will continue to engage, as we will with other Members of this House. In terms of reasonable steps, the process is in development. It is about marking the records and writing to individuals. When we have passed the legislation, we will write literally that day, or the next day, to those individuals to say, “You’re conviction has been quashed,” and we will give them details about how to claim compensation.
Mr Kevan Jones
I know that the Minister is committed to ensuring that everyone is contacted. What about the legacy cases—when people have passed away? Will someone try to contact their estates, for example?
Kevin Hollinrake
Those are challenging issues. The key thing—I hope the right hon. Gentleman takes this in the right way—is that what we are doing here to quash convictions does not require people to come forward. When the conviction has been quashed, we will contact the most relevant person in that context. Those people can take forward a claim in exactly the same way, and it will be considered in exactly the same way, as any other claim. The estate, the families, can claim compensation.
Mr Jones
I agree with the Minister, but I think this needs to be given some thought. Perhaps the advisory board might look at legacy cases in which people have passed away, because those entitled to compensation might not come forward. We might have further discussion about that.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am very happy for us to look at that, and to work with the right hon. Gentleman and the advisory board. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to him, Lord Arbuthnot, Sir Chris Hodges, and Professor Richard Moorhead for their work in this area. We will continue to work closely alongside the right hon. Gentleman.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) recognised the work of people other than me on this matter—not least the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. I recognise that he is the only serving postmaster in this place, so we always listen carefully to what he says. Like him, we encourage people to come forward to claim compensation.
The people not included in the legislation—those who have been convicted as a result of prosecution by the DWP—can still appeal in the normal way, and I encourage them to do so if they feel that there are grounds for that. My hon. Friend asked about Fujitsu and the quantum it is due to pay. Our view has always been that we should let the inquiry conclude and determine responsibility. We will then know the extent of the compensation bill, and that will be the right time to have a conversation about contributions, for which Fujitsu has already accept a moral responsibility; we welcome that. Although the Post Office has had a chequered past in this regard, I believe that it has a very bright future, and we are keen to ensure that it does. We should always keep that in mind.
I understand what the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) said about the territorial extent of the Bill. As I said, I met the First Minister, Deputy First Minister and the Minster of Justice for Northern Ireland yesterday, and I will continue to do so. We are determined to ensure that measures are brought forward as quickly as possible in all areas of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Member makes a compelling case about the need for public consultations in his jurisdiction. We are aware of that. There are 26 cases in Northern Ireland, and we are keen to ensure that they are overturned as quickly as possible. We will continue work to ensure that that happens.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland talked clearly about ensuring that prosecutors are accountable for their role. Decisions were taken in Scotland. He was right to say clearly that a legislative consent motion does not offer the same level of parliamentary accountability, and I think we should all reflect on that. His final words were “accountability makes a difference.”
The hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) talked about his preference for the measures to be UK-wide. We understand that; we have had several conversations and will have many more, I am sure. I understand his point about the risks of judicial review and of delays to public consultation. He feels that he makes an overwhelming argument. We will keep those conversations going.
I concur with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, and echo her tribute to Alan Bates, Jo Hamilton, Lee Castleton, journalist Nick Wallis, campaigner Dan Neidle, another journalist Tom Witherow, Lord Arbuthnot, Karl Flinders and many others, including many Members of this House. We pay tribute to them for their work. We recognise the profound impacts that the Horizon scandal has had on those who were falsely accused. It has taken too long to get to this point, and our ambition is to get this legislation through both Houses by July and compensation paid to the victims by August. Through this Bill, we will exonerate those who were so unjustly convicted of crimes that they did not commit and provide fair redress as swiftly as possible. I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill (Programme)
Wednesday 20th March 2024
(9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Read Hansard Text
Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill
Monday 29th April 2024
(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 29 April 2024 - (29 Apr 2024)
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I remind Members that in Committee they should not address the Chair as Deputy Speaker. Please use our names when addressing the Chair. Madam Chair, Chair, Madam Chairman or Mr Chairman are also acceptable.
Clause 1
Quashing of convictions for relevant offences
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I beg to move amendment 25, page 1, line 6, at end insert—
“(za) the conviction took place before the coming into force of this Act,”.
This amendment makes it clear that clause 1(1) will quash only convictions occurring before the coming into force of the Act.
The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 1, page 1, line 9, leave out paragraph (b).
Government amendments 27 to 28.
Clause 1 stand part.
Government amendments 29 to 33.
Clause 2 stand part.
Government amendment 34.
Clause 3 stand part.
Government amendments 35 to 41.
Amendment 3, in clause 4, page 3, line 34, at end insert—
“(4A) Notification under subsection (4) must include a written summary of—
(a) the compensation schemes available to a relevant person following a quashed conviction under section 1(1);
(b) the relevant heads of loss under which a relevant person may claim compensation; and
(c) a tariff of compensation available relating to each of the heads of loss mentioned in paragraph (b).”
Amendment 4, page 3, line 34, at end insert—
“(4A) Notification under subsection (4) must include a written commitment from the Secretary of State that—
(a) the period of time between a full and valid claim for compensation and an offer of compensation will not exceed four weeks; and
(b) if the offer is not made within the four week period mentioned in paragraph (a), a fixed penalty amount will be added to the ultimate compensation sum for each day by which the four week period is exceeded.”
Amendment 5, page 3, line 34, at end insert—
“(4A) Notification under subsection (4) must include a written commitment from the Secretary of State to use reasonable endeavours to ensure that the period of time between a full and valid claim for compensation and an offer of compensation will not exceed four weeks.”
Government amendments 42 to 44.
Clause 4 stand part.
Government amendments 45 and 46.
Amendment 6, in clause 5, page 4, line 18, at end insert—
“(3A) Notification under subsection (3) must include a written summary of—
(a) the compensation schemes available to a relevant person following a direction to delete a caution under section 5(1);
(b) the relevant heads of loss under which a relevant person may claim compensation; and
(c) a tariff of compensation available relating to each of the heads of loss mentioned in paragraph (b).”
Amendment 7, page 4, line 18, at end insert—
“(3A) Notification under subsection (3) must include a written commitment from the Secretary of State that—
(a) the period of time between a full and valid claim for compensation and an offer of compensation will not exceed four weeks; and
(b) if the offer is not made within the four week period mentioned in paragraph (a), a fixed penalty amount will be added to the ultimate compensation sum for each day by which the four week period is exceeded.”
Amendment 8, page 4, line 18, at end insert—
“(3A) Notification under subsection (3) must include a written commitment from the Secretary of State to use reasonable endeavours to ensure that the period of time between a full and valid claim for compensation and an offer of compensation will not exceed four weeks.”
Government amendment 47.
Clauses 5 and 6 stand part.
Government amendments 48 to 51.
Clause 7 stand part.
Government amendments 52 and 53.
Amendment 70, page 5, line 39, after “as” insert “Pathway,”.
This amendment would provide additional clarity by ensuring that the application called Pathway, which was rolled out as a pilot version of Horizon, is explicitly referenced as a Horizon system for the purposes of the Bill.
Government amendments 54 and 55.
Clause 8 stand part.
Government amendment 56.
Amendment 71, page 6, line 26, at end insert—
“(3) This Act expires at the end of the period of 2 years beginning with the day on which it is passed.”
Clauses 9 and 10 stand part.
Government new clauses 2 and 3.
New clause 1—Provision relating to Northern Ireland—
“(1) The Secretary of State must consult the First Minister and deputy First Minister about making provision for quashing any conviction in Northern Ireland for an equivalent “relevant offence” (see section 2) alleged to have been committed in Northern Ireland.
(2) The Secretary of State may make regulations to apply the provisions of this Act, with any necessary modifications to take account of the law and legal system in Northern Ireland, to secure the quashing of any conviction in Northern Ireland for an equivalent “relevant offence” (see section 2).
(3) Unless the First Minister and deputy First Minister acting jointly advise to the contrary, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft of regulations to be made under subsection (2) no later than one week after the day on which this Act is passed.
(4) Regulations under this section are to be made by statutory instrument and may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, each House of Parliament.
(5) Subject to subsection (4) of this section, section 7 of this Act applies to other regulations made under this section.”
This skeleton clause would require comparable provision to be made to quash convictions in Northern Ireland on the same basis as in England and Wales.
New clause 6—Statement on quashing convictions relating to Capture software—
“The Secretary of State must, no later than 30 days after the day on which this Act is passed, make a written statement to Parliament outlining action the Government intends to take to secure the quashing of convictions of persons carrying on a Post Office business while using the Capture software from 1992 onwards.”
Government amendments 23 and 24.
Kevin Hollinrake
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Rosie. Given the nature of this debate, in moving the Government amendments, I will also use my speech to discuss the other amendments that have been tabled.
First, I will address the Government amendments in the name of the Secretary of State relating to Northern Ireland: 23 and 24, 26 to 44, and 46 to 56, as well as new clauses 1 to 3. I am grateful to the House for agreeing to the Government’s instruction motion to enable debate on these important amendments. The Government have listened carefully to representations across the House regarding the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland. We recognise the unique challenges faced by the Northern Ireland Executive in bringing forward legislation to quash convictions to a similar timeframe as the rest of the UK.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
I just want to put on record, in Committee, the Democratic Unionist party’s sincere and personal appreciation of the Minister for how he has engaged with us, the pragmatic way he has approached these issues, and the can-do attitude he has extended to Northern Ireland. We have met on a number of occasions. He has received the thorough representations of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and colleagues across the House, not least Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive. We are indebted to him. We recognise that this is a huge step forward for the sub-postmasters in Northern Ireland who felt there would not be light at the end of the tunnel. He has extended the Bill very purposefully for all those affected in Northern Ireland, and we thank him for it.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. It is a pleasure to work with him and his colleagues from Northern Ireland. We were always sympathetic to his arguments and are delighted to have been able to move forward as we have.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Following on from my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), it is fair to say that a week ago or even a month ago, the 23 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses in Northern Ireland had little hope. Today, they have hope and that is due to the Minister’s endeavours on their behalf, pushing this issue and the Government’s acceptance. On behalf of the 23, we would like to say a big thank you to the Minister and the Government.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am very grateful. The hon. Gentleman is right to address the point about the 23 sub-postmasters. They are why we are here and why we are keen to act in this way. We recognise that there were specific circumstances in Northern Ireland that would have delayed the exoneration and compensation to those individuals, and that is why we are acting as we are today. It is always a pleasure to work with him, as I have on many different issues over the years.
Issues include the Executive’s recent restoration and additional public consultation requirements, which the House debated on Second Reading. In deciding to take this step, the Government recognised the extent of cross-community support for the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland. For those reasons, we have decided to put forward Government amendments which would extend the scope of the Bill to Northern Ireland. I am very grateful to have cross-party support from Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies in co-signing Government amendments, specifically the right hon. Members for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), and the hon. Members for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), for North Down (Stephen Farry), for South Antrim (Paul Girvan), for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna).
The amendments, which have been drafted in consultation with the Northern Ireland Executive, empower the Northern Ireland Department of Justice to implement the legislation in the same way as the Secretary of State will in England and Wales. The amendments would modify the criteria for the convictions which are overturned to ensure that the relevant convictions from Northern Ireland are captured within its scope. Specifically, they would add those secured by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland and refer to distinct Northern Ireland offences. Additionally, this group of amendments would ensure that the relevant cautions will be deleted in Northern Ireland, as they will be in England and Wales. The amendments have the same intent as new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for North Antrim, so I hope he will be happy to withdraw it on that basis.
On amendment 1, in the name of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), I thank him for his continued engagement on the Bill and on wider Horizon matters. It is vital that we stay true to our objective of bringing justice to wrongly convicted postmasters, but it is also important to keep in mind the constitutionally sensitive nature of the Bill. We should legislate in a way that respects the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary. This amendment would widen the scope of the Bill to include convictions that have been upheld by the Court of Appeal. It would automatically quash such convictions, thereby overriding decisions taken by the senior judiciary. These cases are excluded from the Bill because the Government believe that it should tread very carefully where judges in the senior appellate courts have considered a case on its merits. We do not consider it appropriate for Parliament to interfere with such decisions.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on this point and, indeed, for the way he is approaching it. The Chairman of the Justice Committee sent him an excellent letter last week in which he underlined that almost all the witnesses before his Committee agreed that it was unfair for the Bill to take a restrictive approach, in the way the Minister has, while taking a rather expansive approach elsewhere. I know the Minister has written back to the Chairman of the Justice Committee, but his letter did not touch on this point. I wonder whether he will take the opportunity to wrap that up for us.
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for their work. We take these matters and the independence of the judiciary very seriously. Where the Court of Appeal has upheld a conviction and declared it safe, we think that is a material concern. There will always be different opinions in these areas, but we think we are striking the right balance between overturning convictions that we believe to be unsafe in the main and ones that have been before a senior judge.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I, too, pay tribute to the Minister for the extremely constructive way in which he has engaged with everybody on this matter. My initial position was entirely supportive of the Government, but I must say that the evidence given to the Justice Committee causes me to think again. It is usually right to be very wary indeed about trespassing on decisions made by the courts. However, we have chosen to do that because it is thought desirable for the greater good in respect of the bulk of convictions.
The point that needs to be emphasised is that we have perhaps not appreciated that, in cases where convictions were upheld by the Court of Appeal, it applied a narrower test to the relevance of the Horizon evidence. In Hamilton and related cases, it said that the test was whether the Horizon evidence was essential to the conviction. We do not apply that test as a result of a policy decision. That could lead to a bizarre situation whereby someone who did not get to the Court of Appeal because the Criminal Cases Review Commission did not refer the case would have their conviction quashed, whereas someone who the commission thought had an arguable case and who went to the Court of Appeal but who was rejected on a narrower test than Parliament is now creating would not benefit from having their conviction quashed. That is the unfairness that we need to think a little more about, and it is the thrust of what the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) is getting at.
Kevin Hollinrake
There will, of course, always be different legal opinions on these matters. As my hon. and learned Friend expressed, he has had two different opinions on what we should do in this regard, and I know that his view is based on further submissions of evidence that he has received. Of course, we consider these matters very carefully. My right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary is here and listening to my hon. and learned Friend’s comments. We will always continue to reflect on this legislation to make sure that we are getting to the right place, but I understand the points that he raises.
Sir Robert Neill
There were certainly differences of opinion as to the appropriateness of the measure as a whole, with Dr Quirk being in a minority of three who took a different view, but there was not a difference of opinion on the factual point that the test applied by the Court of Appeal in Hamilton is different from that which is in statute. That was a matter of unanimity.
Kevin Hollinrake
I understand and accept that point, but a decision has to be taken on whether to include these cases. There is definitely a difference of legal opinion on that point, because I have had different representations made to me.
We recognise that this approach may leave a small number of individuals concerned about the way forward for their cases. In cases where the Court of Appeal has upheld a conviction, the usual routes of appeal remain available to them. Those affected can apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which can review their cases.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The Minister knows that we on the advisory board have discussed this issue at length. Given what has come out of the inquiry over the last few weeks, does he agree that there is evidence that may have a bearing on some of these cases? I accept why he does not want to include them in this Bill, but we need to look at some of these cases to see whether there are grounds for appeal.
Kevin Hollinrake
Of course, and I am listening intently to the evidence before the inquiry. It is true to say there are some shocking revelations. As the right hon. Gentleman illustrated in his work with the advisory board, there was a maliciousness about some of the prosecutions, which is of great concern, as is the flawed Horizon system. Part of the reason why we are legislating as we are reflects that, but we will continue to look at the evidence that emerges.
Liam Byrne
If that is the approach that the Minister is going to take, could he tell the House a bit more about how his Department will support individuals who find themselves in this egregious position? As my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, evidence will now have come to light that was not available to the Court of Appeal or, indeed, to courts that may have refused leave to appeal. Those individuals will be in a terrible state now. What can his Department do, and on what timetable, to support them through the process that he proposes they take?
Kevin Hollinrake
The right hon. Gentleman makes the point himself: as more evidence emerges, it may be that the CCRC takes a different view of cases that are brought forward. People who have presented their cases can revisit them by making an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which can make recommendations as it sees fit. Clearly, we are happy to provide any information that we possess, and the Post Office will do the same. As I say, the inquiry’s revelations may bring information that would help in some cases. The CCRC may refer cases to the Court of Appeal if it considers that there is a real possibility that convictions would not be upheld. With the constitutional sensitivities in mind, I hope the right hon. Member will agree to withdraw his amendment.
I turn now to amendments 3 and 6, tabled in the name of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill. These amendments would require the Secretary of State to include details of available financial redress in notifications to people who have had their convictions quashed, or cautions deleted, by this Bill. The amendments come as part of a number of recommendations by the Business and Trade Committee, to which the Government have since provided our response. I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman and the whole Committee that we will include information about redress in the notifications that we send to postmasters when their convictions are overturned. Our aim is that the redress process will follow seamlessly from the process of overturning convictions—there is no need to legislate for this. Those with cautions may have already sought financial redress via the Horizon shortfall scheme or the group litigation order scheme. We will provide them with the necessary guidance to identify the appropriate route to claim financial redress, if they have not done so already.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying these points as we go along. He will know that many sub-postmasters have not applied for the full extent of their potential claim because they are unsure about the case law involved, and I understand that the Department is using some guidance in making judgments—for example, the Dyson judgment, which is not publicly available, for perfectly good reasons. There is a bit of creativity going into how we solve this problem. The Post Office wrote to me last night to say that, on the Horizon scheme, it is recording the heads of loss and the averages of claims that are being agreed, which could be one of the ways in which sub-postmasters are given a sense of what the tariff is. Could the Minister say a bit more about how we absolutely guarantee in the notification that we maximise the chance of sub-postmasters claiming the maximum possible amount that they should be entitled to?
Kevin Hollinrake
We have tried to design the schemes in conjunction with the legal firms that are advising most of the claimants on claiming redress. We will continue to work with them, as we do with the advisory board, and there are different mechanisms that we can use to make this process simpler, more transparent and easier to navigate. Clearly, cases will differ, despite similarities, so if we go down the full assessment route, it is important that all claims be assessed individually, which obviously takes time. If there are mechanisms that we can use—for example, the tariffs that the right hon. Gentleman describes—to expedite the process, we would be happy to look at them. We will continue to work with the advisory board on that.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I had hoped that my hon. Friend was going to speak to amendment 70 as well. I just so pleased that we are going through the legislation today, because it is so important for so many people. I have written to him about my constituent who came to see me about her husband, who was a sub-postmaster. He had been written to by the Post Office, who had told him about his exceptional bookkeeping. He then discovered an unexplained loss in the amounts. He called the auditors; they came in, and they locked him out of his business. They searched his home. They did not find any evidence, but they took away his business, his home, his livelihood and his reputation. We have heard that so many times. The only difference is that this happened in 1992, under the precursor system to Horizon. Amendment 70 mentioned the Pathway system. My constituent was using something called Capture. Fortunately the case was dropped before it got to criminal court. I know that the Minister is looking at whether there were more of these Capture cases. When the legislation comes before the other place, can we make sure that, if needed, it can also quash any criminal convictions due to Capture, or other precursor systems, as well as Horizon?
Kevin Hollinrake
I will speak to amendment 70. I wrote back to my right hon. Friend about her case, and we are looking at this. I am sure that the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) will have something to say about this issue. We have agreed to instigate an independent review of that software. There are some fundamental differences. For example, it is not networked, so no remote access is possible, whereas that is a major feature of the issues with Horizon. I am happy to continue to engage with my right hon. Friend on the issue, and I congratulate her on the way she has dealt with it on behalf of her constituent.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst’s amendment 71 would also sunset other parts of the Bill. This would not give victims of the scandal the justice that they deserve. We are clear—there has been agreement across this House on this—that this exceptional legislation does not set a precedent, and I hope, especially with the reassurance provided by Government amendments 25 and 45, that he will withdraw amendment 71.
Sir Robert Neill
I understand where the Minister is coming from, and of course he has provided a deal of reassurance, but I want to test this a little. Are we really assuming that it will be necessary to leave open-ended people’s ability to come forward to have their conviction quashed? After all, if they cannot reasonably be traced, there is provision for the Secretary of State to notify an appropriate person. For example, if we cannot find the person—or their next of kin, if they are dead—there is a catch-all provision about notifying an appropriate person. Why could that not include the criminal records bodies? Would they not be notified anyway? I just wonder why we have to leave the provision open-ended to that extent. There will come a point when the provision has been exhausted. Also, I am interested in how my hon. Friend envisages a process working through which people can get a document that shows that their conviction is quashed—for example, if they need a visa or work permit, or have to undergo Disclosure and Barring Service checks.
Kevin Hollinrake
As I said, the legislation expires on the day that the provision is brought into effect. My hon. and learned Friend is talking about the ongoing marking of the records of people who may come forward at a future date. We do not know what that date would be. I am happy to have a conversation with him about what the cut-off would be, but the effect of this legislation, in terms of quashing convictions, expires on the day it receives Royal Assent.
Sir Robert Neill
I understand that, and I can see my hon. Friend’s point, hence the two amendments. My point is that he is praying in aid, as another reason for not having a sunset clause, the provisions for notifying people about applying to have their convictions quashed. What is the mechanism to make sure that does not hang around indefinitely? We will eventually want to bring things to a conclusion—not only getting convictions quashed, but, quite separately, paying out the compensation fund. One day, all the compensation that can be claimed will have been claimed. What do we do then? How do we wrap up the process? That is what it comes down to.
Kevin Hollinrake
As I said, I am happy to have a continuing conversation with my hon. and learned Friend on that point. I feel that it would be a serious injustice if we set, say, a three year cut-off period and somebody came along a day later. Those are the challenges that we have to meet.
Liam Byrne
In a way, this is the core of the debate about where the four corners of the Bill should stretch to. The hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) makes a very good point: at some point, there should be a sunset on such unprecedented legislation. At the moment, there are no limits to its expansiveness in terms of time, but the Minister has set a limit on its expansiveness in terms of the individuals involved, because he is ruling out those who have gone through the Court of Appeal. The Bill would benefit from further discussion, perhaps in the other place, about precisely where the four corners should be pinned down.
Kevin Hollinrake
I would welcome that discussion, and I will follow it closely in the other place.
The controversial element of this unprecedented, exceptional legislation is the overturning of the convictions, because we are interfering with the courts by legislating in this way. The convictions expire on day one. All that happens further on from that is the marking of the records, which is not the controversial part. The controversial part is the interference with the courts. Again, I am happy to have a continuing conversation with the right hon. Gentleman.
New clause 7, in the name of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), would require the establishment of an independent intermediary body to administer financial redress to individuals whose convictions are quashed by the Bill. I also acknowledge the Business and Trade Committee’s recommendation on a similar point.
I assure the Committee that we are building independence into the process of making financial redress. Final decisions will, if necessary, be made by an independent panel comprising a King’s counsel, an accountant and a retail expert. The panel will have a case manager, who will ensure that cases are settled fairly, swiftly and in a non-adversarial manner. I have been clear throughout my work that we should put the victims of the scandal back in the position that they would have been in, and that we should move as quickly as possible. We feel that it would take months to set up an independent intermediary, and that it would add additional steps to the process and risk creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
If my new clause had been selected for debate, I would probably not seek to press it. I am not in a position to do anything more, but I thank the Minister for his assurances on independence.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
As the new clause was not selected, we probably should not be discussing it.
Kevin Hollinrake
My apologies, Dame Rosie. I will move on with pleasure.
Penultimately, I turn to new clause 6. I thank the right hon. Member for North Durham for all his work seeking justice for the former sub-postmasters and, indeed, on the Horizon compensation advisory board. My officials have been working closely with him, as have I, and he will be aware that we have set in train the process of appointing an independent forensic investigator to look into the Capture software, now that the Post Office has addressed concerns about it. Obviously, this relates to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), who is no longer in her place.
This follows on from the useful meeting that the right hon. Member for North Durham and I had with a sub-postmaster and his wife who wanted to talk to me about his experiences. My officials have spoken to other affected sub-postmasters, too. New clause 6 would require the Secretary of State to make a statement within 30 days of Royal Assent. As the Committee knows, we aim to complete the Bill’s passage very quickly, so a statement may be due quite soon. In practice, we feel it would be too soon, and time is needed to identify and appoint the right person for this role, and for the investigator to complete their work and offer an independent conclusion.
Mr Kevan Jones
Clause 2(2) mentions 23 September 1996. Is the Minister saying that any ICL Pathway system installed in post offices, even prior to that date, will be captured by the Bill?
Kevin Hollinrake
Certainly, if we regard it as a pilot system of Horizon, that would be the case, as drafted.
Mr Kevan Jones
So is the date irrelevant? I have spoken to one person whose prosecution might have been 1996, but there is evidence that the Pathway system was in place before that date in 1996.
Kevin Hollinrake
That is not what we understand from the Post Office, but I am happy to continue our discussions, as I always do, to make sure that every relevant person affected by Horizon or its pilot systems is covered.
Several hon. Members rose—
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Before I call the next speaker, I remind the Committee that this debate has to finish at 9 o’clock. I know some of the points are very detailed, but I am conscious that I have the four Members who are standing and the shadow Minister to get in. Colleagues should bear that in mind, because I cannot impose a time limit. It is about making sure that everyone has a chance to speak.
Liam Byrne
Thank you, Dame Rosie. It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship.
I will be very brief, because some of my points have been covered through interventions. There has been good progress since the Bill was published, which is testament to the Minister’s leadership and his officials’ support. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) said, the more that we have heard in the inquiry and through the media since the Bill’s publication, the more horrified and more determined we have become to hold individuals, including the former chief executive of the Post Office, to account. It is pretty clear to many of us that the evidence she gave to the Select Committee on 3 February 2015 and 24 June 2020 has been flatly contradicted by the Channel 4 revelations that were published on 27 March. I hope the Select Committee will be able to bring options for the House to consider as soon as possible.
I wish to touch on three points quickly: the speed of redress, the stress of redress, and the scope of this scheme. The point about speed is lit up by a single fact: the total budget for compensation is about £1.2 billion, but as of last Wednesday £196 million has been paid out. The implication of that is that 80% of the compensation budget has not been paid out, after all this time, and all the heartbreak, trauma and scandal. This Bill will correct that imbalance substantially; about £780 million of the budget is earmarked for overturning convictions and this Bill allows us to move that money much faster. However, I remain concerned by what the Minister said today about the lack of any service level agreements for paying more out for the overturning convictions scheme. I would have expected a timetable for paying out that redress alongside this Bill today.
We should be concerned about that because the track record of making payments is not good. For example, if we look at the claims in the Horizon shortfall scheme submitted by the original deadline in November 2020—three and a half years ago—we see that 362 people have still not been paid, which is a sixth of applicants. If we look at the late claims, all 667 of them, we see that three quarters of them have not been paid. That is why the Select Committee looked hard at how we could introduce some strictures to ensure that people were paid much faster.
Since then, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who has more experience in this House than pretty much anybody else, and indeed the Minister, raised serious and wise concerns about the risks of putting a legally binding deadline on the entire timetable. I have listened to those concerns with care, which is why the way that my amendment on this has been drafted takes aim at one part of the process: the timeframe between a legitimate claim being submitted and a first offer being made. The Minister’s target is four weeks and we are getting close to that now, but the reality is that a significant number of people are still not being paid within that timeframe.
In some of the anonymised evidence the Minister provided to the Committee, we can see that 13% of claimants in the GLO scheme are waiting more than 40 days, with 2% waiting more than 100 days. If my amendments, as I have drafted them, are not right and still run risks, I appeal to the other place to work harder on this to ensure that there is some legally binding stricture on the Department that means that when, God forbid, the Minister is no longer in his position, and we do not have his emollience and tenacity to rely on, his successor, whoever that may be, is bound by some kind of timeframe that ensures we are not still having this debate in years to come.
To check the point, I contacted a number of Select Committee witnesses this morning and found that there was some evidence that the speed of claims was improving. However, new issues were emerging; I am told that the time taken to table a second offer when the first is rejected is, frankly, not fast enough. There have been delays of up to three months or more in offering dates through remediation hearings, so the process is still running too slow. If I have failed to persuade the Committee today, I appeal to the other place to help us to find some legal mechanisms to ensure that there is stiffer timetable to which the Department must adhere.
My second point is about the stress that many people will face when putting claims in. Many people will not put claims in because legal assistance is not available before the claim is submitted. Many people, such as Christopher Head, are going out of their way to provide pro bono assistance to people in putting claims together, but often it will take hours and hours of work to get a claim form in and many people simply will not be up for that, as they do not have the patience and they want to put this behind them. They certainly will not have the legal assistance available to them. That is why I hope the Department will consider publishing some kind of tariff to help people ensure that they are claiming for the full amount. The Minister may well say that there is a risk that people will then under-claim, but I checked that with some of the lawyers this morning. Their response was expressed in rather unparliamentary language, I am afraid, Dame Rosie, but the upshot was that such an objection was utter nonsense.
I know that a lot of thought is going on in the Department about the way to do this, and I welcome the letter from the Post Office publishing average offers around the heads of loss that have been set out. Obviously, there will be bandings that are more appropriate, and perhaps that is a way to publish these things. Obviously, there is a judgment the Department is relying on—the Dyson judgment—and the neutral evaluation, which is not publicly available, for good reason. However, my plea to the Minister is this: let us try to make much clearer to claimants the full measure of redress that they should have available. If there are issues in people needing extra help before the claim form is put in, please let us make sure that that help is available right at the beginning of the stage and not simply made available once the claim is in and a contest is under way about what should be paid.
My final point is about scope, which we have already got into. There is a case for the Government to think again about the cases that have already gone to the Court of Appeal and were refused or were not given leave to appeal. The best evidence for that is the Chair of the Justice Committee’s excellent letter, in which he says:
“The Bill is in effect treating cases where the CCRC had credible evidence that Horizon data might have been essential to the prosecution case less favourably than those that the CCRC considered had no credible evidence and therefore no basis upon which to refer to the Court of Appeal.”
That is an extremely important point.
I can see what the Minister is trying to do. He is conjuring here with very radical legal remedies, and that is not something we want to be expansive, but the risk we are running is that we leave an injustice that takes years and years to work through. He has addressed some of the points the Chair of the Justice Committee made in his letter, but he has not addressed that one in writing. The objection and the goal of my amendments still stand. I will not press my amendments to a vote, because we are trying to maximise the spirit of collegiate working. I accept that my amendments, particularly on the issue of speed, may not yet be at the state of perfection that they would satisfy everyone in the Committee, especially those Members with more experience of working on these cases than I have.
However, the problem is there: people are not being paid fast enough; they are not being supplied with the right amount of information up front at the beginning of their claim; and the scope of the Bill has been drawn too narrowly. I look forward to working with the other place to try to get amendments in place that can improve the Bill and commend the consent of Members from all parties.
Sir Robert Neill
I, too, hope that I can be brief, Dame Rosie, because we have covered a deal of the ground in the interventions. However, I wish to make a few short additional points to those that have already been ventilated. They are all contained in the transcript of the evidence of the Justice Committee’s hearing with four distinguished witnesses, three senior academic lawyers and, in Mr Rozenberg KC, arguably the most distinguished legal journalist of recent times. Interestingly, the Government will perhaps take comfort from the thought that three of those distinguished witnesses were prepared, despite some of my misgivings, to say that this may be the least worst way of dealing with the position. Equally, however, all of them thought that more things need to be done with the Bill, which is what I ask the Minister to bear in mind.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) for referring to the letter that I wrote to the Secretary of State on 24 April. It broadly encompasses what I think are the key points, and I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to respond in writing, so that we can then publish that, in addition to the transcript of our evidence and the letter, for completeness of the record before the Bill goes to the other House.
I come to the other issues we flagged up. A small but perhaps important one relates to the conditions that must be met before the conviction can potentially be quashed. In particular, condition D in clause 2(5) requires the offence to have been committed
“in connection with carrying on, or working for the purposes of, the post office business”.
The Government’s explanatory notes say that the provisions of the Bill are “intended to be unambiguous”, but the debate we had in the Justice Committee suggests that there is potential ambiguity there. Take, for example, the position of a post office worker who, during the course of the operation of the Horizon system, is convicted of theft of stock for personal gain. Is that in the scope of the Bill or not? It is not in relation to a deficiency. In reality, that means that the Secretary of State will have to be advised by officials, perfectly properly, as to whether any individual case comes within the scheme and therefore within the scope of the requirements of clause 4. Some judgment will have to be made, and it would be interesting to know on what basis.
Liam Byrne
The Chair of the Justice Committee is making a brilliant speech. The Minister characterised the decision and the conundrum here as a legal conundrum, but in a way it is in fact a political conundrum, because we are taking a political decision about the where the scope of the scheme should start and stop. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman have any insight into how long it might take those who are currently left out of the scheme to secure justice if we do not amend the Bill to improve the scope?
Sir Robert Neill
The right hon. Gentleman is right about the policy choice that ultimately gives rise to this issue. I pray in aid a quotation from Dr Hannah Quirk, who, of all the witnesses who gave evidence to the Justice Committee, was the most sceptical, but she conceded, in reference to people whose cases have gone to the Court of Appeal,
“If we are taking an expansive approach, it seems unfair to exclude them. The Court of Appeal might have been applying different criteria at that stage—the full extent of the scandal had not come to light.”
That is an important point to bear in mind. The Court of Appeal would have been considering a mixture of evidence and law at that stage. Professor Chalmers, who has also been mentioned, said:
“I obviously think it is unreasonable. I can certainly see the argument for cases from Hamilton onwards, but if someone had appealed at the time when the problems with Horizon were not documented, it seems to me to be entirely unfair to exclude them from the Act on that basis.”
Mr Kevan Jones
Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that much has come out since those cases were looked at? The public inquiry evidence about the way the Post Office investigated those cases showed that a text-book aggressive style was used in every case. That had an impact on some sub-postmasters pleading guilty when they were not, and in the way in which some of them were harangued to the court.
Sir Robert Neill
The right hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly fair point. That is why I hope we can find a formula to revisit this issue as the Bill makes progress. Given the expansive policy decision the House has taken, I do not think any great extra constitutional outrage is caused by including those who have been to the Court of Appeal within scope. It is rather as Keynes said:
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
As the right hon. Gentleman points out, the facts may well have changed.
There may be an alternative formulation to that set out in amendment 1. It might be that a provision could be added to the Bill—I am thinking almost de bene esse at the moment—when it goes to the other House to automatically mandate the Criminal Cases Review Commission to refer those cases. At the moment, someone is required to go to the CCRC to seek the reopening of their case and apply to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal out of time, if the case has been dismissed, and for it then to be reconsidered. As the Lady Chief Justice said in evidence to the Justice Committee, I have no doubt that the Court of Appeal would move very swiftly if that were to occur—she was very clear on that point—but there has to be a trigger mechanism, which is absent at the moment.
To come back to the point made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, the current working processes of the CCRC could not guarantee speed. Some provision to mandate the CCRC to refer such cases swiftly might be a means of achieving justice, without upsetting any more constitutional apple carts. Perhaps that is the sort of discussion we could usefully have as the Bill goes forward.
A point linked to that is the position of someone who has appealed. I notice that clause 3 sets out the various circumstances in determining when a conviction has been considered by the Court of Appeal. Clause 3(4)(a) says one such circumstances is where
“a single judge of the Court of Appeal has refused to give leave to appeal against the conviction,”
and leave to appeal has not been given by the Court of Appeal thereafter. People can appeal the single judge’s leave to the full court, but that does not always happen. The point to make there is that, although in some cases we do not know, a suspicion was strongly raised by witnesses to the Justice Committee that the single judge may have refused leave simply on the grounds that an appeal was out of time, because there are strict time limits on bringing an appeal. If that has been the case, because it never got to the full court, the single judge and the full court would never have considered the merits; leave would have been refused purely on the basis that technically the case was out of time and there was no evidence put forward to justify at that stage why there should be a granting of leave to go beyond time. Again, that might have been because the full facts of the scandal were not yet know. I would hope that that sort of anomaly could be addressed without too much difficulty.
Dame Eleanor, I hope constructive things can still be done on the margins to improve the Bill in relation to those matters and, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill rightly said, to get the shape of the Bill into proper form. I will not press my amendment, because we want to take things forward constructively, but I hope that the Minister, in the exceptionally helpful spirit that he has adopted throughout, will continue to engage with those of us who, whatever our misgivings, realise that this is a route that the House has chosen to take. We want to get it working to the best possible extent for those who have been affected by this horrendous scandal. That will lead to ramifications in the prosecutorial process, the disclosure process and many other things beyond.
Mr Kevan Jones
First, may I declare my interest as a member of the Horizon compensation advisory board and take some responsibility for why we are here today? It was the advisory board that recommended this course of action, but this suggestion was down to the tenacity of the Minister and of the Law Officers, who he worked with closely.
When the idea was first muted at the advisory board, we thought that, possibly, this would not be acceptable to the Government, but the persuasive powers of the Minister, who I have come to admire, clearly worked their magic within Government. None the less, this was the only path to take; many individuals would not have come forward without this approach, which the hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has described as unique.
May I also put it on the record that I am pleased that the Northern Ireland cases have been included in the scope of the legislation? Although there is only a small number, it would have been wrong to have held them up, through no fault of their own, because of the way that the consultation had taken place. Again, I congratulate all parties in Northern Ireland on how they have come together to take this united position for the victims.
Let me refer to amendment 70, and the ICL Pathway. Although the Minister has given some assurances on this, let me explain why I tabled the amendment. ICL Pathway was introduced in 1996, and the purpose of my amendment is to get some clarification on it. It was a stand-alone pilot, but the legislation refers to the “Horizon pilot”. I am quite convinced by the Minister’s assurance that this will be in the scope of this legislation. That is important, because there are a number of individuals, certainly in the north-east of England, who used the ICL Pathway—it was not called the Horizon pilot at that stage—who were subsequently prosecuted and will now be brought into the remit of the Bill. That is important, because it will mean that at least one individual I have met, who originally thought they would not be included in this legislation, will be.
Let me turn now to new clause 6 on the Capture cases. The Minister will not be surprised that I have tabled this clause, because—given the anorak that I am in terms of the Horizon scandal—I think we have potentially discovered another scandal that predates Horizon. For the benefit of the Committee, I would like to provide a little bit of background. As the Minister said earlier, Capture was very different from Horizon; it was developed by the Post Office itself from 1992 onwards, and it was not a linked or networked system like Horizon. It was sold as a quick way of
“producing cash accounts quickly and accurately.”
It was a computer-based system, but was not networked, and it is quite clear that there were huge troubles, with it generating shortfalls. With each upgrade of the software, new bugs seemed to have grown on the system. According to the analysis that has been done on the upgrades, the Post Office identified at least 123 bugs in the Capture software.
Once we had the publicity around the Horizon scandal, a lot of people came forward and talked about experiencing shortfalls, including someone I went to visit in the north-east who described exactly their experience with the Post Office. I initially thought, “Well, this is a Horizon case.” It involved a computer, and the aggressive way in the way the Post Office prosecuted that individual. But it was only when I looked at the dates that I realised that they did not match up; it could not be Horizon or ICL Pathway, because it was before then. Since then, 35 individuals—36 from today, I think, because the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) has raised another case—have come forward. We are talking about a long time ago, so a lot of these individuals will have sadly passed away, but more people are coming forward. I heard of someone this week who is now on the other side of the world; they had moved away from this country because they had been made bankrupt by the Post Office.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Like other Members, I will not speak for very long. In this instance, I actually mean that. I will speak to new clause 1 in my name and those of my colleagues, and new clauses 3 and 2 in the names of the Secretary of State and my colleagues. The Minister will really have an opportunity to dine out on all the thanks and gratitude. It is not given lightly. He has shown something that the public constantly tell us is absent from this place: honour. He has been completely honourable with the people of Northern Ireland in this matter.
Whenever my right hon. Friends the Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) raised the matter in the Chamber, they consistently asked for Northern Ireland to be included. From day one, the Minister was consistent in saying that he would use his best endeavours to do that. Sometimes we hear those words and it is only acknowledged in the breach, but he was absolutely clear that he was going to do it. There were ups and downs in the process, but every effort was made to ensure that, on a cross-party, cross-ministerial and cross-legal-jurisdiction basis, the consistent message came back to the Minister that this was the way to resolve the issue. Accepting the instruction this evening was a clear indication that that would happen.
New clause 1 is now superfluous to requirements. It has been incorporated in the Government’s own new clauses. We welcome that and thank the Government for it. Sub-postmasters across Northern Ireland will know that they are being treated exactly the same, with the same opportunity for fairness and to receive compensation, as their colleagues in England and Wales. I hope it is not inappropriate to thank the Clerks’ office. I really want to draw attention to how, frankly, brilliant they are in helping us to ensure that new clauses are drafted correctly. That made it easier for the Government’s team to then accept what we had tabled. Without the Clerks’ help, we would not have been as successful. It is only appropriate to acknowledge that.
I know from speaking to some of the victims that they are extremely grateful. They were wound up a bit from time to time by the media, who told them, “Northern Ireland is being excluded. You’re not going to get it,” even after we had the commitment from the Minister. Thankfully, tonight postmasters in Northern Ireland will see justice, and I thank him for that. I will therefore not press new clause 1 in my name.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
It cannot be repeated often enough that the Horizon scandal remains one of the greatest miscarriages of justice our nation has experienced. It is a scandal characterised by abuse of power, the mistreatment of innocent people and the wholesale failure of the entire system. We might blame it on a failure of IT, but that is not the whole story. It is human failure on a grand scale—a failure to listen, and a failure to learn. It is a failure by the powerful to listen to sub-postmasters, and it has had a catastrophic cost in reputation, income and suffering on hard-working, innocent sub-postmasters and their loved ones.
Sub-postmasters are people we rely on, at the heart of our communities—the people who serve us, help us and hold our communities together. Without the tireless campaigning of people such as Alan Bates, the relentless efforts of parliamentarians across the House, and the work of journalists and filmmakers, perhaps justice would have never been done. To them I pay tribute, and I extend my gratitude to the Minister for the work that he has done, from the Front Bench as well as from the Back Benches. We have heard horrific stories of sub-postmasters who took their own life because of the suffering, and stories of shame, pain and suffering for sub-postmasters, as well as their families and friends.
Labour supports this unprecedented Bill, and we believe that it must pass into law with the necessary urgency, given the gravity of the situation. This has been said already, but it is crucial that this Bill should not set a precedent. It is an exception. We must understand the weight of this action, so that it is never even considered again. The legal solution in this Bill is a wholly exceptional and isolated case. These necessary actions are being taken to match a miscarriage of justice unprecedented in both scale and impact. The Bill must not set a precedent.
Kevin Hollinrake
I will tackle the points that have been made as briefly as possible. The Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), is right to say that £196 million has been paid out so far. This legislation will open the door to a lot more compensation, and it should go out rapidly to victims of prosecutions. Also, we expect that number to rise significantly with the introduction of the fixed-sum award of £75,000 for Horizon shortfall scheme claimants. To be clear, around 70% of claims submitted in time have been settled, following the final settlement for those individuals, so we are making progress, but we are determined to make more. Certainly, we are working with the Horizon compensation advisory board to ensure that that is the case. We are very happy to get into the weeds and nitty-gritty of this; we do that daily. The right hon. Gentleman said that, for whatever reason, I may not always be the Minister with this brief. I am very happy to help whoever takes over the brief when that happens, should more help be needed.
Yes, we are keen to accelerate the timescales right across the piece for the GLO scheme. As I say, we are hitting our target of making 90% of first offers within 40 days, but we will come forward with more service-level agreements for other schemes. I am very happy to work alongside the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill on that.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful for that reassurance. Does the Minister think that he will have the service-level agreements for the overturned convictions scheme on the table before the Bill is sent for Royal Assent?
Kevin Hollinrake
Yes. The right hon. Gentleman asked about tariffs. We are keen to do whatever we can to make the process quicker, easier, clearer and more transparent. We are taking that away and looking at it right now.
Of course, legal advice is available prior to the submission of a claim to the Horizon overturned convictions and compensation scheme, as it is in the GLO. It is only in the HSS, which was seen as non-adversarial, that that does not apply prior to the offer being made, but legal advice is available after that point.
We are obviously keen to continue discussing the cases that are before the Court of Appeal. We will certainly respond in due course to the letter from the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill).
Liam Byrne
I am grateful to the Minister for taking a final intervention. It is maybe a non-adversarial process, but it is none the less an intimidating one that involves a complicated 16-page form that takes several hours to fill in. That is the equivalent of several thousand pounds-worth of legal assistance. At the moment, such assistance is being provided pro bono by those with some experience, but I hope that the Minister will look at the matter again.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am happy to look at that. I should point out that a lot of the 16-page form is legalese. Only about four pages of it is actually stuff that needs to be filled in, but I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point, and the advisory board has made a recommendation for an independent appeals process for this scheme as well, which we are looking at.
I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst for his work on the issue with the Justice Committee. I agree that what is before us is the least worst option, and I am glad that the legal fraternity is coming to the same opinion. We will respond to his letter of 24 April, particularly on the Court of Appeal cases. There are 13 cases—seven before the Court of Appeal, and six that have been refused leave to appeal—and I am very happy to look at them, and to continue our conversations. I understand the potential injustices around those cases. We will also have a look at his point about subsection (4)(b) of clause 2, to make sure that there are no unintended consequences from the legislation.
I thank the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for all his work on the advisory board. He has talked about my persuasive powers; I think the ITV series was far more persuasive than I was in moving things on and getting us to where we are today, but certainly, following his recommendations, which were made before the series aired, we were looking at ways to expedite the overturning of convictions, and some of the Bill is based on those recommendations. As I say, we are looking at the Capture software through the independent review. We have both met with Mr and Mrs Marston, and their story, like many others, was compelling.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the date range, which is dealt with in subsection (2)(a) of clause 2, under which the offence has to have taken place between 23 December 1996 and the later date. If an offence was committed at an earlier date, it would be excluded under the legislation. We need a conversation with the right hon. Gentleman about that, but the independent review should inform our debate going forward. It is easier to include Horizon than other things that were not directly connected to Horizon, as the court has found convictions unsafe on the basis of Horizon evidence. That is why we are able to legislate in this way.
I thank the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) for his kind words. It is important to recognise that all of us are here to do the right thing, and it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to do so in this way, on a cross-party basis. We are very pleased to be able to agree with the DUP’s wishes that Northern Ireland be included in the legislation, particularly for the sake of the 23 postmasters in Northern Ireland who have suffered as a result of Post Office actions.
I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), and her Front-Bench colleagues for their support. We are very keen to make sure that Fujitsu contributes—it has agreed to do so, and has a moral obligation to do so. My Secretary of State, who has been massively supportive of all my work on these issues, has met Fujitsu’s global chief executive officer, and we expect to provide more news to the House in due course.
With that, I commend the Government amendments to the House.
Amendment 25 agreed to.
Amendments made: 27, page 1, line 9, after “Appeal” insert “in England and Wales.”
This amendment is consequential on amendment 26.
Amendment 26, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
“(2A) This Act also applies to a conviction in Northern Ireland for a relevant offence where—
(a) the conviction took place before the coming into force of this Act,
(b) the offence was prosecuted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland or the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland, and
(c) the conviction has not been considered by the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland.”
This amendment provides for convictions in Northern Ireland for relevant offences to be quashed.
Amendment 28, page 1, line 12, at end insert
“in England and Wales or in Northern Ireland.”—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment is consequential on amendment 26.
Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Meaning of “relevant offence”
Amendments made: 29, page 2, line 32, at end insert
“or section 17 of the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969;”.
This amendment, and amendments 30 to 33, add the equivalent offences for Northern Ireland to the list in clause 2(3).
Amendment 30, page 2, line 35, after “1968” insert
“or section 15 or 15A of the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 29.
Amendment 31, page 2, line 37, leave out “that Act” and insert
“the Theft Act 1968 or section 19(1) or (2) of the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 29.
Amendment 32, page 2, line 41, at end insert
“or section 21 of the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969;”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 29.
Amendment 33, page 3, line 1, at end insert
“or section 1(1) of the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969.”—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 29.
Clause 2, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
Determining when a conviction has been considered by Court of Appeal
Amendment made: 34, page 3, line 15, at end insert—
“(6) In this section “the Court of Appeal” means—
(a) in the case of a conviction in England and Wales, the Court of Appeal in England and Wales;
(b) in the case of a conviction in Northern Ireland, the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland.”—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Clause 3, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Identification and notification of quashed convictions
Amendments made: 35, page 3, line 17, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “appropriate authority”.
This amendment, and amendments 36 to 43, provide for the functions of the Secretary of State under clause 4 to be exercisable in Northern Ireland by the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland.
Amendment 36, page 3, line 18, at end insert—
“(1A) In this section “the appropriate authority” means—
(a) in the case of convictions in England and Wales, the Secretary of State;
(b) in the case of convictions in Northern Ireland, the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland.”
See the explanatory statement for amendment 35.
Amendment 37, page 3, line 19, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “appropriate authority”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 35.
Amendment 38, page 3, line 20, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “authority”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 35.
Amendment 39, page 3, line 25, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “appropriate authority”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 35.
Amendment 40, page 3, line 26, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “authority”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 35.
Amendment 41, page 3, line 32, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “authority”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 35.
Amendment 42, page 3, line 36, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “appropriate authority”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 35.
Amendment 43, page 3, line 37, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “authority”.
See the explanatory statement for amendment 35.
Amendment 44, page 3, line 37, leave out “in England and Wales”.—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Clause 4, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Deletion of cautions for relevant offences
Amendments made: 45, page 4, line 3, after “has” insert
“before the coming into force of this Act”.
This amendment makes it clear that clause 5 applies only in relation to cautions given before the coming into force of the Act.
Amendment 46, page 4, line 5, before “criminal” insert “UK”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment NC2.
Amendment 47, page 4, line 27, before “criminal” insert “UK”.—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment is consequential on amendment NC2.
Clause 5, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 7
Power to make further consequential provision
Amendments made: 48, page 5, line 7, leave out
“an Act of Parliament passed”
and insert
“primary legislation passed or made”.
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Amendment 49, page 5, line 8, at end insert—
“(2A) But regulations under this section may not make any provision which is transferred Northern Ireland provision for the purposes of section (Power of Department of Justice to make further consequential provision).”
This amendment is consequential on amendment NC3.
Amendment 50, page 5, line 15, leave out “an Act of Parliament” and insert “primary legislation”.
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Amendment 51, page 5, line 20, at end insert—
“(6) In this section “primary legislation” means—
(a) an Act of Parliament, or
(b) Northern Ireland legislation.”—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Clause 7, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Interpretation
Amendments made: 52, page 5, line 23, at end insert—
“(a) in the case of England and Wales—”.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 53.
Amendment 53, page 5, line 30, at end insert—
“(b) in the case of Northern Ireland, any caution (including a restorative caution) given to a person in Northern Ireland in respect of an offence which, at the time the caution is given, the person has admitted;”.
This amendment makes provision about the meaning of “caution” in relation to Northern Ireland.
Amendment 54, page 6, line 9, after “Wales” insert “or Northern Ireland”.
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Amendment 55, page 6, line 21, at end insert—
“(c) Article 6 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (S.I. 1996/3160 (N.I. 24)).”—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Clause 8, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
Extent and commencement
Amendment made: 56, page 6, line 25, leave out “only” and insert “and Northern Ireland”.—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment provides for the Bill to extend to Northern Ireland (as well as to England and Wales).
Clause 9, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 2
Deletion of cautions for relevant offences: Northern Ireland
“(1) If it appears to the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland (“the Department”) that a person has before the coming into force of this Act been cautioned in Northern Ireland for a relevant offence, the Department must direct the Chief Constable to delete details, contained in relevant criminal records, of the caution.
(2) As soon as is reasonably practicable after receiving a direction under subsection (1), the Chief Constable must delete the details of the caution.
(3) Where the Department gives a direction under subsection (1) in relation to a person’s caution, the Department—
(a) must take all reasonable steps to notify the person, or, if the person is no longer alive, the person’s personal representatives, that the direction has been given, or
(b) if it is not reasonably practicable to give a notification under paragraph (a), must take all reasonable steps to—
(i) identify some other person whom the Department considers it is appropriate to notify, and
(ii) notify that person that the direction has been given.
(4) For the purposes of this section, the Department must, in particular, consider any representations made to it which claim that a person has been cautioned in Northern Ireland for a relevant offence, whether or not made by that person.
(5) In this section—
“the Chief Constable” means the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland;
“the Northern Ireland criminal records database” means the names database maintained by the Department for the purpose of recording convictions and cautions;
“relevant criminal records” means—
(a) the Northern Ireland criminal records database, and
(b) the UK criminal records database;
“the UK criminal records database” means the names database held by the Secretary of State for the use of constables.”—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This new clause makes provision for Northern Ireland corresponding to that made by clause 5.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 3
Power of Department of Justice to make further consequential provision
“(1) The Department of Justice in Northern Ireland may by regulations make provision that—
(a) is consequential on any provision made by this Act, and
(b) is transferred Northern Ireland provision.
(2) For the purposes of this section “transferred Northern Ireland provision” means provision that—
(a) would be within the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly if it were contained in an Act of that Assembly, and
(b) would not, if it were contained in a Bill in the Northern Ireland Assembly, result in the Bill requiring the consent of the Secretary of State under section 8 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
(3) The power to make regulations under this section may, in particular, be exercised by amending or modifying any provision made by or under primary legislation passed or made before, or in the same session of Parliament as, this Act.
(4) Regulations under this section—
(a) may make different provision for different purposes;
(b) may contain supplementary, incidental, consequential, transitional or saving provision.
(5) The power to make regulations under this section is exercisable by statutory rule for the purposes of the Statutory Rules (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 (S.I. 1979/1573 (N.I. 12)).
(6) Regulations under this section that amend any provision of primary legislation may not be made unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, the Northern Ireland Assembly.
(7) Any other regulations under this section are subject to negative resolution within the meaning given by section 41(6) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954.
(8) In this section “primary legislation” has the same meaning as in section 7.”—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This new clause confers power on the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland to make consequential provision as a result of the Bill.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Title
Amendments made: 23, line 1, after “Wales” insert “and Northern Ireland”.
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Amendment 24, line 4, after “Wales” insert “or Northern Ireland”.—(Kevin Hollinrake.)
This amendment is consequential on the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.
Bill, as amended, reported.
Bill, as amended in the Committee, considered.
Third Reading
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Hon. Members will need no reminder of the significance of this Bill. This legislation will, I hope, bring some much-needed relief and closure to those caught up in one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history. For the postmasters wrongfully accused of, and convicted and punished for, crimes they never committed, this Bill means hard-won exoneration, with their convictions wiped clean from the slate.
A wrong is finally being put right but, as hon. Members know, these postmasters will also receive the fair compensation they deserve through the Horizon conviction redress scheme; this will be delivered by my Department rather than the Post Office. While the scale of the Government’s response in this case is extraordinary, I am keen to remind hon. Members that it does not set a precedent for our involvement in other judicial matters. I know this sentiment has been echoed across this House during debates on the Bill. We have chosen this path because the sheer extent of the Post Office’s prosecutorial misconduct is an affront to justice in and of itself. It demanded an exceptional response from Government.
That is why I was glad to see this Bill being welcomed on both sides of the House on Second Reading. There is, I believe, a unanimous consensus that the provisions of this legislation are needed to bring justice to postmasters who have suffered too much for far too long.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am sorry to intervene on Third Reading. The Secretary of State is talking about justice for postmasters and mistresses, which is completely right, but I want to ask one question about the policy aspect of this. I and other Members have had postmasters who have written to us who have not been prosecuted but found that the Horizon system was working badly and had to top up out of their own money when Horizon was reporting losses due to faults in the system. What is their redress route if they are now saying, “I was hundreds of pounds out of pocket because I was having to make up the difference”?
Kemi Badenoch
We have devised the Horizon shortfall scheme to deal with those specific situations and if my hon. Friend writes to the Department we can look at some of the cases brought to him as a constituency MP.
I know the debate to date has centred around calls to extend the Bill to Northern Ireland, and the Government have been supportive of them. So, in consultation with the Northern Ireland Executive, I was pleased to see the Government amendments in my name accepted by the Committee of the whole House. As a result of the House’s support, postmasters in Northern Ireland who suffered the same injustices as those in the rest of the UK will now also see their good names restored, with proper financial redress.
As has been noted during recent debates, the speed of that redress could not be more important. Because of the Horizon scandal, people lost more than just their jobs; they were pursued for non-existent losses, they racked up legal bills, and they suffered enormous financial and personal strain because of the Post Office’s actions. It is therefore entirely right that victims do not wait a second longer than necessary to have that money paid back to them—with interest—to reflect what they have lost. I am determined that this legislation complements the ongoing work to hasten redress across the existing schemes. Here we are already making good progress, with payments allowing postmasters to finally move on with their lives.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Opposition, especially the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) for his constructive and supportive approach to working with the Government on this Bill, and so many Members across the House who have engaged with us over and again to deliver the right result for postmasters. I would also like to thank the officials of both my Department, Business and Trade, and the Ministry of Justice who have been working hard behind the scenes for some time to ensure that postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal are supported and compensated fairly. But most of all I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for his exemplary work as Post Office Minister and in taking through this Bill and dealing with the issue in a very sensitive manner and helping to create confidence in the scheme.
This Bill is a major step forward in that mission. After years of campaigning and fighting to clear their names, postmasters are now receiving the justice they deserve. No Bill can fully undo the damage that has been done or remove the scars the Horizon scandal has left on its victims, but through this legislation we are doing our best to right the wrongs of the past so that every postmaster caught up in this scandal can begin to rebuild their lives. I commend the Bill to the House.
Rushanara Ali
I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for their remarks. Today’s Bill, as has been acknowledged, provides an important step forward in bringing justice for sub-postmasters. They have suffered more than we can imagine, as the Secretary of State has pointed out. That has included unjust prison sentences, bankruptcy, ostracisation from communities, family breakdown and homelessness. Tragically, the scandal has led to some sub-postmasters taking their own lives. Today by no means makes amends for what they have been through and the suffering their families have endured, but it is an important positive step.
We welcome, as I have said previously, the fact that today’s Bill will bring particular relief for the 27 Northern Ireland cases and ensure that they receive exoneration. The many stories we have heard of those affected, whether in this debate or in previous statements and debates, are just snapshots of the scale of suffering that the Horizon scandal has caused. It has been a scandal defined by the abuse of power, secrecy and delay. As others have acknowledged, we have seen the inquiry revealing yet more challenges and yet more issues, whether those relate to the cases referred to today, non-disclosure agreements, the speed with which action is taken, the particular abuses that we have seen or much else. While this Bill has a particular focus, it will not be enough.
As I said earlier, I welcome the actions the Minister is taking to address the concerns on Capture. I welcome the clarification he has made on Pathway and the assurances he has given to Members on both sides of the House on the speed of providing the necessary compensation and on ensuring that this Bill remains a unique provision, given the unique and extraordinary situation that sub-postmasters have experienced and the injustice they have faced.
We look forward to seeing progress on the action that will be taken to deliver the compensation that sub-postmasters desperately need. We look forward to working with the Government to make sure that the Post Office is fit for purpose, because frankly what we have seen from this scandal and what has been uncovered over the period that the Post Office has presided over it and its implications has exposed major failings that we urgently need to address. We must ensure that the institution is fit for purpose, that further scandals do not hit that institution and that more people do not suffer. What we have seen does not inspire confidence, and action must be taken. I look forward to working with Ministers to help achieve that.
Mr Carmichael
I am pleased to give this Bill my support and that of my party on Third Reading. It shows what is possible when the House comes together and works collegiately, as we have done. It must surely remain a concern to us all that it is necessary in the first place.
I pay warm tribute to the Minister for how he has handled this matter, not just as a Minister but in his time before he came into office, as well as to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), although she is not in her place at the moment. I would say only that I hope that the Scottish Government can bring to the Scottish Parliament the legislation that has been prepared so that we can all come to the same place at the same time, because the important thing here—we have to come back to this time and again—is the outcome for the sub-postmasters themselves. For the Post Office as an institution, this is an important step in restoring its trust and its standing in the communities that we all represent.
I leave the House with this final thought. There is a temptation to think that when the Bill passes and its provisions are implemented, somehow or other that is it—job done. I caution the House against that. We are here tonight because of a head of steam that was built up because of the nature of the Post Office as an institution, the standing of sub-postmasters in our communities, the sheer number of cases and the remarkable way in which the ITV programme caught the mood of the nation.
What happened to sub-postmasters is different from what happens to people all the time only in one respect: the sheer scale of it. In my time as a Member of Parliament, I have come across so many examples of people with good, reasonable cases who were squeezed out of what they are entitled to because of the inequality of arms. Public bodies have deep pockets—the taxpayer is behind them every step of the way—to pay for the best legal representation and to stonewall in cases where people would otherwise have good justice.
I will be back in Westminster Hall on Wednesday morning to deal with a case about the accountability of the Financial Conduct Authority, where it acted in respect of claims made by constituents of mine who had been the victims of a Ponzi scheme only because it was eventually forced into doing so by people who, as with the Post Office, were brave enough to take their case to court. Ultimately, they lost, but in the process of taking their case to court, they put the FCA in a position where there was no alternative but to pay out to all the victims through the financial services compensation scheme.
The brave 95 people who took the legal action in the first place are left £2 million out of pocket. Everybody gets something because they were brave enough to stand up, but they are left to pay at the end of it. That might be the law, Madam Deputy Speaker, but you will never persuade me that it is justice.
Gavin Robinson
Like others who have spoken, I indicate the Democratic Unionist party’s full support for the Bill at Third Reading. The Secretary of State was kind enough to thank the Minister. As she was not present to hear all our tributes to him throughout the course of the evening, I want to repeat them for her benefit.
The Minister has thoughtfully and doggedly worked through the issues on the inclusion of Northern Ireland. We are incredibly grateful to him. He used to sidle up to me weekly and suggest something else that I needed to do to allow him to advance the case for inclusion, and every time I satisfied what he had asked of me, he presented another challenge, and then another. He requested that I speak with people who are really uncontactable for politicians because they are too impartial for such work. But my colleagues and I genuinely appreciate the way in which he has engaged with us.
Tribute was paid to the Northern Ireland Executive and the way in which they have engaged in this issue, but as the party leader it would be remiss of me not to put on record my appreciation for the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who took an interest in the issue long before the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive. He has recognised the deep injustice that has been at the heart of the Horizon scandal and doggedly pursued resolution and justice for those affected in Northern Ireland.
Our friend, the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), has always been a champion for Northern Ireland’s inclusion in the legislation. We are grateful not just for his interest in us, but for his commitment to the issue over many years and the thoughtful way in which he has engaged in it.
It serves to prove the impact that Back Benchers can have in the parliamentary process that there is no frailty to the pursuit that we have. Though we may not have sufficiency of numbers to provide the opposition in and of ourselves, we have been able through effective relationships to ensure positive progress in the Bill. However, that can work only if there is reciprocation. For that, throughout the course of the last weeks and months, and longer relationships on other issues, we are grateful.
Mr Kevan Jones
This is a historic, unique and very controversial Bill. It is another small step in the justice for sub-postmasters campaign, which has been going on for decades. I pay tribute to Alan Bates and all his campaigners. They said no to the people who were telling them to go away. They kept at it, and they are the heroes in all this.
I pay tribute to the fellow members of the advisory board, Professor Chris Hodges, Richard Moorhead and James Arbuthnot. We proposed this solution for overturning convictions, but did we expect it to be accepted? No, we did not. That is down to the Minister’s work. I also want to put on record my thanks to the Attorney General and Justice Secretary, both of whom not only engaged with the arguments but saw the logic of this controversial way of doing it—the only way of doing it. Without their help, it could not have been done.
Let me put on record my thanks to the Minister’s long-suffering officials. They have to put up with not just him but me and the other advisory board members. They worked tremendously hard on this, as did the officials in the Ministry of Justice. We are into civil service bashing again this week, but I must say that without them, we could not have achieved what we have in this Bill. I heard what the Minister said on the issues around Capture. Hopefully, given the constructive way in which he has approached the issue, we can get justice for those affected.
Finally, our thoughts should be with all those people who are no longer with us, such as Tom Brown, my constituent who originally got me involved in this scandal. June Tooby’s forensic cataloguing of the Capture case will hopefully lead to some justice for those victims, too. This is an important step forward. Let us hope that it gives families some comfort to know that their loved ones will be exonerated as part of this process.
Sammy Wilson
Let me also put on record my thanks to the Minister for his work on this issue. I first came across it when I witnessed the anger, frustration and despair of people who knew that they had done no wrong, yet had their reputations sullied, lost their business and faced the suspicion of their friends and even their family. They felt that they were beating their heads against a brick wall of bureaucracy—they were against people who had standing, and who were believed, regardless of the evidence that mounted against the case that they were making. The Minister has done a great thing by giving hope and exoneration to people, many of whom felt that they would never get justice. Now they have found it.
The Minister knew about the scandal before he took his position, and he made it clear at the very start that he intended to see this through. He has used his position to do a good thing. It is important to recognise that this place has been the vehicle by which justice has been delivered. A committed Minister was determined to use his position to do the right thing for individuals.
When the issue of Northern Ireland was first raised with the Minister, there was a reluctance; there is no doubt about it. When I put questions to him on the Floor of the House. and in my conversations with him, there were always reasons why legislation should be introduced in Northern Ireland. Here is a good thing: the arguments were listened to, over time.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) said, the Minister did not just roll over. He expected us to do something as well, and make the case—that is the job. I am thankful for the fact that he listened, and that Northern Ireland was included.
I thank the Clerk for his advice. Many of us are not really aware of all the parliamentary procedures, even though we have been here for I do not know how long. We do not always know the best of way of going about things. The advice and the support that was given was very important in getting this over the line.
Unfortunately, even though people will be exonerated as a result of this legislation, there are many who died with this shadow on them, and with the shame of what was done to them by people who, as the inquiry now shows, were cynical, manipulative and calculating in how they pursued them through the courts. This is not for debate today, but I hope that once the inquiry is over, there will be accountability for those who knowingly put sub-postmasters through this, quite apart from the embarrassment some have had during the inquiry, when they have forgotten matters, shown arrogance, or claimed that they were just doing their job. As I say, some sub-postmasters died without their name ever being cleared. We can do nothing about that, but I hope that their families will at least feel some reassurance as a result of this legislation.
Once the Bill passes into law, sub-postmasters will be exonerated from a legal point of view, but I hope that the compensation that they are due will be paid out quickly. The Minister outlined some of the ways he intends to ensure that compensation claims are dealt with quickly; I hope that they are.
I hope that other Ministers learn from this experience. Do not forget that even when the evidence was piling up, and the issues had been pointed out, and suddenly sub-postmasters and sub-mistresses across the country were common thieves, Ministers turned a blind eye, or accepted the explanation given by their officials. As I mentioned at the very start, the frustration that people feel when the state denies them justice, or tells them that they have done something that they have not, causes them to have no confidence at all in Government and its institutions. We could go through a number of issues. I look at the evidence that is building up on the loan charge. I ask myself whether, in five years’ time, we will find the same kind of issue there, with programmes put in place, and Ministers embarrassed and unable to explain why they did not take action when all the evidence was there. I hope Ministers take heed of this sorry tale, in which they believed people in power, rather than the victims of those in power.
Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)
I was elected in 2010, and was an MP of just a few months’ standing when my constituent Seema Misra approached me, saying that she had just been sentenced to jail. She was pregnant and her sentence came down on her son’s 10th birthday. With the help of James Arbuthnot, now in the other place, within a few days I realised that there were other colleagues who had similar cases, and it all pointed to the Horizon system. I wrote to the Post Office Minister at the time and I was rebuffed. There must have been other colleagues who did the same thing. A Back Bencher of just a few months’ standing was able to see right to the heart of the problem with the help of the internet and a couple of fantastic colleagues, yet a Minister of the Crown was not. Now, Ministers in our system have surgeries—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. This is not a Second Reading speech. We are at the very end of the Bill and the hon. Gentleman should be making an intervention, but that was very much a speech. We all have sympathy with the point he is making, but this is not the time in the proceedings when such points are made. I believe that the right hon. Member for East Antrim was just about to conclude the entire debate on the entire Bill.
Sammy Wilson
I was indeed, but the intervention shows that Ministers need to listen. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for giving us great support for the case of Northern Ireland, and to others who persisted in raising this issue. I know that a lot has been said about the TV programme, but even before it aired there was a realisation, because of the persistence of Members, that something had to be done. I am glad it has been done, and I hope that this will be a great relief to many people who have lived under the shadow and the cloud of the things that happened to them over a number of years.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill
Tuesday 30th April 2024
(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 29 April 2024 - (29 Apr 2024)
Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill
Monday 13th May 2024
(7 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 29 April 2024 - (29 Apr 2024)
Lord Offord of Garvel
That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to present the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill for Second Reading today. Noble Lords will have followed the passage of this historic Bill through the other place and will be well aware of its significance and the cross-party support it has received. This legislation will address one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history. It will quash the convictions of those affected by the Post Office Horizon scandal in England and Wales, and, following government amendment in the other place, Northern Ireland. This will ensure that postmasters are not disadvantaged by the unique challenges of expediting legislation faced by the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Government will continue working closely with the Scottish Government to support their approach to addressing the scandal, ensuring that every postmaster who has been affected, irrespective of where they are in the United Kingdom, receives the justice they deserve. The financial redress scheme will be open to postmasters throughout the UK, regardless of where or how their conviction was quashed.
This Bill will clear the names of postmasters whose lives were destroyed because of the Horizon scandal—those who received wrongful convictions or cautions for offences, including false accounting, theft and fraud, because of the Post Office’s faulty IT system. The legislation cannot undo the damage caused by the Horizon scandal. However, it is a crucial step in restoring the good names of those affected and ensuring they can access fair and full redress.
This new legislation will quash all convictions which meet the following clear and objective conditions: that the case was prosecuted by the Post Office, the Crown Prosecution Service or Northern Ireland’s prosecuting authorities; that the alleged offence was committed between certain dates in 1996 and 2018; that the postmaster was convicted of theft, false accounting or similar offences listed in the Bill; that the convicted individual was working in a Post Office which was using the Horizon system; and that the alleged offence was carried out in connection with running the business of that Post Office or with the person’s work in that Post Office.
The Bill will not quash convictions that have already been considered by the Court of Appeal, as defined in the Bill. The safety of those convictions has been considered by judges in the senior appellate court. The Government’s view is that, given the constitutional sensitivities, extreme caution must be exercised over whether Parliament should interfere with these decisions. Convictions will be quashed automatically when the Bill receives Royal Assent, removing the need for people to apply to have their conviction overturned. This will ensure that those affected receive justice as soon as possible.
The Bill includes a duty on the Secretary of State—or in Northern Ireland, the Department of Justice—to take all reasonable steps to identify convictions that have been quashed. It also creates a duty to notify the original convicting court, so that records can be updated. Other records, such as police records, will be amended in response. Similarly, the Bill makes provision for records of cautions relating to this scandal to be deleted.
I am well aware that the approach we are taking in the Bill is novel. In the Bill, we are using legislation to fulfil a function that in normal circumstances is rightly reserved to the independent judiciary. I am equally aware that these are not normal circumstances. Given the number of postmasters involved, the passage of time since the original conviction, the loss of evidence over that time, and the loss of trust in the system—meaning that many affected simply will not come forward to appeal—it is right that the state provides an exceptional response. Postmasters have suffered for too long, and we must end their fight for justice as swiftly as possible.
However, it is vital to make two points clear to your Lordships’ House. First, the Government’s position is that it will be Parliament and not the Government that is overturning the convictions: there will be no intrusion by the Executive into the proper role of the judiciary. Secondly, we have been clear throughout the passage of the Bill that this legislation does not set any kind of precedent for the future. It is also important to be unambiguous that the passage of the Bill is in no way a reflection on the courts or the judiciary, which have dealt swiftly with the cases before them.
Upon Royal Assent, this legislation will quash all convictions in its scope with immediate effect, as a matter of law. This means that victims will not have to take any action to receive exoneration. It also means that this unprecedented provision expires once it has done its job on the day of Royal Assent. This supports the Government’s aim that the Bill should not be seen as a precedent for Parliament’s acting outside its usual constitutional role. The Government will take all reasonable steps to notify the relevant individuals and direct them to the route for applying for financial redress. Further details of this process will be set out in due course. Importantly, there will also be a process for anyone to come forward where they believe their convictions meet the criteria. If they meet the criteria in the Bill, their records will be amended to reflect the quashed conviction in the same way.
Turning to financial redress, this new legislation will be followed by a rapid route to financial redress, on a similar basis to the existing redress arrangements for those with overturned convictions currently administered by the Post Office. However, the Government, rather than the Post Office, will be responsible for the delivery of the scheme for those whose convictions are overturned by the Bill. Final decisions will be made by independent panels or individuals, where they cannot be agreed with the postmaster.
We do not need provisions in the Bill to deliver that scheme; the legal basis on which redress is made is already in place. We place great importance on ensuring that this redress is delivered promptly. Information about redress will be provided to each individual alongside the notification that their conviction has been overturned. Each exonerated postmaster will have the choice between accepting a fixed offer of £600,000, which will be paid rapidly, or having their claim individually assessed. This new scheme will join the three schemes already being run by the Post Office and my department. In total, over £200 million has already been paid to over 2,800 claimants. Some 72% of claims received have been settled, but the Government continue to strive to accelerate matters. Ministers are advised on these issues by the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. We are very grateful to the board’s members, notably the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, in his usual place, who has done so much to drive the resolution of this scandal.
In summing up, this Bill amounts to an exceptional response to a scandal which is wholly exceptional in nature. It is a scandal that has shaken the nation’s faith in the core principles of fairness and equity that underpin our legal system. We recognise the constitutional sensitivity and unprecedented nature of this legislation, but we believe that it is essential for us to rise to the scale of the challenge. The hundreds of postmasters caught up in this scandal deserve nothing less. Of course, no amount of legislation can fully restore what the Post Office so cruelly took from them, but I hope this Bill at least begins to offer the closure and justice for which postmasters have so bravely campaigned over so many years. I hope that it affords them the ability to rebuild their lives. I beg to move.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the provisions of this very important legislation in such plain language. I think that most, if not all, of your Lordships understand what this Bill sets out to do. I feel honoured to be the first speaker from these Benches to welcome this Bill, particularly when I see who the next but one speaker in your Lordships’ debate is; my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, goes back to even before his work on Horizon. I admire him greatly for what he has done, and he is deserving of the recognition of that work that he and my right honourable friend Kevan Jones did for years in trying to get proper redress for this egregious miscarriage of justice.
There is no doubt that the Post Office Horizon scandal is, if not the worst, one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history. I think I remember that, in January, when the Prime Minister made a public statement that this Bill would come before Parliament, he described it as the worst miscarriage of justice in British history. I am inclined to agree with him: I do not always, but in this case I think I do. As we know, it robbed many people of their good character, their livelihood, their liberty and, in some cases, their life. Because of the nature of the damage that was done to the sub-postmasters, it has been carried down and will be carried down in generations of their families; it has influenced very badly the families of these great public servants. It caused unimaginable pain and suffering, which can never be fully compensated or fully alleviated.
To make matters worse, the fight for justice for the sub-postmasters has become bogged down in a great many delays and barriers, and some of those affected, tragically, as I have already alluded to, have passed away before having the chance to see the justice they deserve. What we do know is that this Bill will free hundreds of innocent people of their wrongful convictions. It will not restore their character, because that can never properly be fully restored, but it will give them an opportunity to try to put it behind them. Importantly, it facilitates the opportunity to make much-needed progress in otherwise righting the wrongs. Those are the reasons given by my honourable friend Jonathan Reynolds in the other place, and they are why Labour will give this Bill our full support.
However, not only must the convictions be overturned but, thereafter, compensation must be delivered at pace. Justice and accountability must follow the conclusions and recommendations of the ongoing independent public inquiry.
I was struck by the words of Sir Robert Buckland at Second Reading in the other place. On more than one occasion in debates and questions on these issues, he has hit the nail on the head. In his first intervention, he said that
“it is important that we emphasise the wholly exceptional nature of this legislation, but we are dealing with wholly exceptional circumstances”—
which were described very clearly by the Minister. I also agree with his emphasis that we have to look again at our evidential
“presumptions about machines and what they produce when it comes to criminal litigation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/3/24; col. 960.]
This is unfinished work that should be done in lockstep with the work that is being done to try to resolve the challenges of Horizon.
I wish to pause for a moment from talking about the Bill itself to recognise the work of the many people who have brought us to this landmark occasion. The postmasters themselves demand a great deal of credit for that. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for people who had been so badly damaged to pick themselves up and fight over tens of years, as some of them have, to get justice not just for themselves but for their colleagues. They deserve the greatest amount of credit.
I have already referred to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, but the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board also requires a great deal of credit for getting us here. As I understand the chronology of how we got here in the last stages, its letter of December last year to the Minister explained in some detail just how difficult it was for anybody to get redress in the Court of Appeal. I think the statistics when the letter was written to the Lord Chancellor showed that there had been 900 prosecutions, but only 93 people had had their convictions overturned at that stage. I cannot work out what that meant and how long it was going to take, but I recently overheard somebody say that, at the pace that those convictions were being overturned, it was going to take the Appeal Court process 50 years.
For the reasons set out in the letter, the board told the Lord Chancellor that the only viable approach was to overturn all the Post Office-driven convictions. Remarkably, within a matter of days, Kevin Hollinrake, the Minister with responsibility for this, said he was taking legal advice on what could be done. By 10 January, the Prime Minister announced publicly that this Bill would be brought before Parliament. Anything would be fast compared with the alternative that was going through, but that was remarkably quick for a Government, because of the number of people who have to be satisfied, and I congratulate and thank all persons involved in getting us to where we are.
In many ways, this is a very unusual piece of legislation, but it is also unusual in this sense: I do not think anybody can make a speech saying that it has come to this House without having had the attention that it deserved in the House of Commons. I know the other place did it all in one day, but it did go over the Bill very carefully and Members deserve some credit for that. There is not much in it that we will need to look at carefully, although I did get an email from the Law Society—as I am sure did all Members who are on the speaking list—which goes on for about four pages. I have not had a chance to consider it, but the Law Society recommends some probing amendments to reinforce the idea that this is not a precedent. I do not think it needs to be reinforced, to be honest; I think enough Ministers have said enough about that at the Dispatch Box for people to establish that it is not a precedent.
However, I am a recovering lawyer, and I must say that, although this is not my Law Society, I am a bit disappointed that there was not a word in it about the number of lawyers involved in getting us to where we are. I will be in correspondence with it and will raise that point. I will ask it whether at some point it might want to say something about the number of lawyers who must have been involved in helping to create this system that has got us to where we are.
Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to speak for much longer, but I want to make two points, which I think we should consider. First, I fear that the issue of extending the Bill to cover Scotland will come up again somewhere in our debates. The Justice Minister in the Scottish Government, the former First Minister Humza Yousaf, and any number of SNP Members in the other House have used some quite critical language about the Government and this Parliament for not extending the Bill to Scotland. The simple answer to that is to remind them that justice is a devolved matter in Scotland. They usually defend devolved matters quite strongly.
My second point is regarding the Lord Advocate—a woman I know well and who is a very good lawyer. For those noble Lords who do not know what the Lord Advocate does—this is important in terms of their requests that the Bill be extended to Scotland—she is, among many other things, the principal legal adviser to the Scottish Government. She is also the head of the system for investigation and prosecution of crime in Scotland. Essentially, she is a public prosecutor, and she spoke to the Scottish Parliament at length about the Horizon cases. She made a statement there on 16 January 2024. I will not read it all to your Lordships because it is four to five pages long, but the important part of it is that, as the Scottish Government’s legal adviser and head of the prosecution service, and having spelled out the circumstances of the Horizon cases as far as they apply to Scotland, she said:
“It is important to recognise that in Scotland, there is an established route of appeal in circumstances such as this. That route involves the SCCRC”—
the equivalent of the committee in England and Wales that looks at cases before sending them back to the Appeal Court—
“considering cases in the first instance prior to referring appropriate cases to the Court of Appeal. This is an important process because not every case involving Horizon evidence will be a miscarriage of justice and each case must be considered carefully and with regard to the law. It is also important to recognise the important and established constitutional role of our Appeal Court in Scotland and that due process must be followed”.
That is the Scottish Government’s lawyer’s position. She is part of the Government. That is how it should be done.
There is another way it could be done in Scotland. The Lord Advocate could, as a prosecutor, say to the procurators fiscal and to the Crown Office, “Look at these cases, tell us whether they can be sustained on appeal and, if they can’t, just take them to the Appeal Court and say that you no longer stand by these convictions”. There is a very simple way—in my view, and this is a view held by many lawyers in Scotland—for the devolved Administration in Scotland to get these cases dealt with through the existing prosecutorial system.
I have a final point I would like to put to the Minister. Why do we persist in excluding from this Bill those who have had their convictions held up on appeal? There is no doubt that the public inquiry has revealed considerable further evidence since those appeals were refused. There is no question that if any of those cases involve Horizon-generated evidence, they should be given the same consideration as the cases that have been prosecuted to conviction but not appealed. Every single witness who gave evidence to the Justice Committee in the other place when it was considering the Bill said that that should be the case. I urge the Government to reconsider that issue.
I have nothing further to say. I will participate in further debates but will continue to support the Bill.
Lord Burnett of Maldon (CB)
My Lords, the wrongful conviction of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses as a result of prosecutorial misbehaviour has caused personal harm—indeed, tragedy—and a national scandal. Wrongful convictions must be quashed, and a bespoke process is necessary to accelerate justice. But the legislative solution His Majesty’s Government have chosen was described in a Written Statement in February by the Minister, Kevin Hollinrake, as raising “constitutional sensitivity” and being “unprecedented” in nature. The constitutional sensitivity arises from the fact that Parliament does not quash convictions; that is a matter for the courts. What the Bill proposes is indeed unprecedented since the constitutional settlement that followed the Glorious Revolution at the end of the 17th century.
The Lord Chancellor, in his recent appearance before the Constitution Committee, said:
“Anybody who cares about the system has misgivings”.
Indeed they do. In the House of Commons, Sir Robert Neill said:
“Frankly, it is most undesirable that we should ever go down that route”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/24; col. 317.]
The Minister responded by saying:
“We agree that this is unprecedented and undesirable, but we believe it is the least worst option”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/24; col. 317.]
I endorse the Government’s sentiment that this legislative proposal is undesirable, but not that it is the least worst option. An alternative scheme, which would have kept within the well-understood constitutional boundaries that separate the roles of Executive, Parliament and the judiciary, was considered but rejected by the Government. I declare an interest in having sketched out such a scheme in early February; I will identify its key features in a few moments.
First, it might be useful to bring together some of the facts. The Bill seeks to capture 950 or more convictions over a period of a little more than 20 years. The helpful Library briefing note tells us that the Post Office has identified 730 individuals it prosecuted where evidence from Horizon may have been used. The balance was prosecuted by the prosecuting authorities in England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. I shall focus on England and Wales, which accounts for most of that total. Those cases were pursued in the magistrates’ court as summary offences, and in the Crown Court on indictment—about half in each court. In answer to a question on Radio 4 on 26 March, the Lady Chief Justice explained that in over 90% of cases the defendants had pleaded guilty.
The High Court judgments in civil proceedings before Mr Justice Fraser in Bates v Post Office at the end of 2019 exposed the flaws in the Horizon system; the first tranche of appeals in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division in 2021 revealed more. The evidence heard by the public inquiry has raised further questions about non-disclosure, the suppression of evidence and worse, and so the original grounds of appeal to the Court of Appeal are now much expanded.
More than 100 appeals have been allowed in England and Wales—about three-quarters in the Court of Appeal on appeal from the Crown Court and about one-quarter in appeals from the magistrates’ court to the Crown Court sitting in its appellate capacity. Some have involved appeals brought out of time by the convicted defendants themselves; others are references by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. A few appeals have been dismissed by the Court of Appeal because the court concluded that the conviction was safe. That is the statutory test. An appeal to the Court of Appeal will be allowed only if the conviction is unsafe. By contrast, an appeal from the magistrates’ court is a complete rehearing. If the prosecution does not call evidence, the appeal will be allowed. No appeal to the Crown Court from the magistrates’ court has been contested by the prosecution.
Both the Post Office and the Criminal Cases Review Commission have contacted all those they can identify to help get their cases back to the appeal courts. The response has been disappointingly poor. Many may just have had enough. That has raised the question of what to do. The Government’s answer is this Bill, but what of the alternative? The outline was simple: legislate to confer power on the Secretary of State to refer cases to the relevant appeal court if she considers that the conviction may be unsafe—that could include cases that have already gone through the courts—and give the Court of Appeal Criminal Division the powers of the Crown Court sitting in its appellate capacity, so all appeals could be dealt with in one place.
The burden on an appellant from the Crown Court to the Court of Appeal is to demonstrate that the conviction is unsafe. The reality is that if an appeal of this sort were not contested in the Court of Appeal, the appeal would be allowed. But any doubt about that could be resolved by reversing that burden with a statutory presumption that the conviction is unsafe. The prosecution would have to rebut it positively to sustain the conviction. The appellants would need to do no more than identify the grounds on which they rely, which are now almost pro forma. To cater for the cases where a defendant has died or lacks capacity, the Attorney-General could be given a representative role. In this scenario, the Secretary of State would be able to inform all those whose cases she intended to refer. Representation could be lined up. The cases would go thought the courts en bloc and be dealt with swiftly.
What, then, of the objections? At their heart is the proposition that many of those affected will not initiate proceedings. The outline scheme caters for that. Next, it is suggested in the Explanatory Notes that an appeal
“relies on there being sufficient evidence that the conviction is unsafe and in many cases that evidence no longer exists”.
The reversal of the burden in the Court of Appeal caters for that and, in any event, the point does not run for appeals from the magistrates’ court. I have also heard it suggested that the courts could not deal with these cases quickly. That has been flatly contradicted in public by the Lady Chief Justice and is confounded by the speed at which appeals are being dealt with at the moment.
All schemes have rough edges but, for the sake of conforming to accepted constitutional norms, a scheme of the nature I have outlined would—with respect to the Minister—be preferable. It would avoid the Executive inviting Parliament to do something about which Ministers themselves have said they have “misgivings” on constitutional grounds and have described as “undesirable”.
It would also avoid one of the anomalies of the Bill: that there is no scope to exclude convictions which are sound. As Sir Robert Neill has pointed out, the Bill sets out to quash convictions
“even if Horizon evidence did not form part of the prosecution”.
That is right. Condition E is simply
“that, at the time of the alleged offence, the Horizon system was being used for the purposes of the post office business”—
not that it was being used by the defendant, nor that it was material to the conviction, but simply that it was there. There may be no Horizon evidence at all in many cases that this Bill would quash. This Bill would quash convictions not affected by the Horizon scandal. It might be thought that that matters not only for constitutional reasons, but because of the Government’s plan, which the Minister explained, to give anyone whose conviction is quashed by this legislation at least £600,000.
It may be that this Bill can be improved by amendment, but its flaws are fundamental. It seeks to achieve a desirable outcome by a novel and unconstitutional route when a satisfactory alternative is available. It will provide food for academic debate and will long feature in university courses on the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers. The repeated suggestions from the Government and the Opposition that it provides no precedent are perhaps the clearest indication that its proponents know that it is wrong in principle to ask Parliament to quash convictions. However, it does provide a precedent, as no future Parliament can be bound by what is said in connection with this Bill. Whether any politicians in the future will try to use it as a precedent, we shall have to wait to see.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board, although I think it has now been renamed the Horizon redress advisory board. It is a genuine honour to be able to follow a speech such as that from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett. I am grateful for what he said and for the immense amount of work that he has put into this most terrible of problems. I want to comment on some of the points that he made during his remarks, but I am grateful to him.
In the face of one of the most widespread injustices in this country—we all know the background—we needed to do something. This Bill is the Government’s answer, and I welcome it. I am extremely grateful to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, my noble friend the Minister in this House and the Post Office Minister in another place, Kevin Hollinrake, for their astonishingly fast appreciation of the need for urgent, dramatic action and for following it through in this way. I am also grateful to my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor for having some really difficult discussions, as we have just heard, with the judges about this.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, has told us, the Bill could have gone two ways: it could have gone his way, or the way that it has. The argument in favour of involving the judges, based on the separation of powers, has been carefully set out by the noble and learned Lord. It is an uncomfortable thing—some would put it much stronger—to have the legislature overturning decisions made by the judiciary, because that could form a constitutional precedent, and I accept that it does form a constitutional precedent, which would take us in the direction of totalitarianism.
I will not express a preference between the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, and the Government’s suggestion in this legislation, because this is the Bill that we have, and I am thankful for it. I understand—of course I do—the constitutional difficulty of Parliament overturning judicial decisions: I practised as a barrister, my wife is a judge and I value the separation of powers. But I also value timely justice and the early reversal of some of the greatest unfairnesses that this country has ever seen. I want to set out the arguments against involving the judges, if only for the record. I accept that the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, deal with many of the points that I will make, but, as I said—and as I know he accepts—we have the Bill that we have.
The Fraser judgments in Alan Bates’s group litigation came out in 2019. The clear consequence of those judgments was that many hundreds of convictions were unsafe. We do not know exactly how many—which is odd—but it was in the region of 1,000. Yet, by the beginning of this year, only a few more than 100 sub-postmasters had even applied to have their convictions overturned. There were several reasons for this. The first and the most important was that too many sub-postmasters wanted nothing whatever to do with a court system that had, in their view, treated them so badly. They had been utterly traumatised and wanted to put the whole ghastly experience behind them. They were simply not applying to have their convictions overturned. They wanted no contact with officials, lawyers, politicians, journalists or anybody else at all, for understandable reasons. Yet appeals rely on the appellant applying, and the current system has no procedure for mass appeals brought by the state itself. I did not quite get to the bottom of what the noble and learned Lord suggested to redress that, but it would have probably been workable. Nevertheless, we have the Bill that we have.
The second reason for not involving the courts was that, in many cases, there is no evidence. In some cases, the Post Office will have taken the evidence away from the sub-postmasters and destroyed it; in other cases, the sub-postmaster himself or herself will have given up and destroyed it; and in yet more cases, the sub-postmaster will have died. To overturn a conviction on the basis that it is unsafe, you need to establish with evidence that it is unsafe. I approve of the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, of a presumption of unsafety, but we have the Bill that we have.
The third reason was that appealing against convictions must be done through several different stages. Appeals go to the Post Office, then to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and then to the court at different levels, with the application of different tests, sometimes leading to different outcomes, which is strange in itself. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, touched on that.
The fourth reason was that the Court of Appeal overturned only those convictions for which Horizon computer evidence was essential to the prosecution. That was an arguable limitation—although, in my personal view, wrong and unfair—in the earlier stages of the process. However, as the public inquiry has uncovered new facts about the behaviour of the Post Office, I suggest that it is a limitation that is no longer tenable. I tread carefully here because the inquiry has yet to report, but it seems that the Post Office investigators, incentivised as they were to recover money rather than to achieve justice, and the Post Office lawyers, intent on concealing evidence, tainted all the evidence produced by the Post Office in any trial.
The deaths of many of the sub-postmasters makes me remind your Lordships that this is urgent. We have to get on with it, and this Bill does that. The Bill quashes certain convictions and, by doing so, it gives rise to redress being paid to hundreds of sub-postmasters. The Bill does not itself deal with that redress. When people say that only a small proportion of sub-postmasters have received redress, they are right, but that will rapidly change with the passage of this Bill. It is an essential step to getting us to where the country wants us to be.
The question of which convictions are to be quashed is a difficult one, but nothing about this saga is easy. The Bill quashes convictions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not in Scotland. I listened with interest to the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, as to how the procurator fiscal could operate in Scotland. The Scottish Government are legislating to achieve something similar; I hope that that can be looked at carefully in Committee.
The quashed convictions under this Bill have to have been prosecuted by the Post Office or the CPS, or by the Northern Ireland authorities, but those prosecuted by the Department for Work and Pensions, for example, are not included. This too will need careful consideration in Committee. Certainly, the DWP will need to give very careful thought to the extent to which it relied on Post Office evidence and investigations, and to consider whether the convictions that it secured were any more safe than those secured by the Post Office and the CPS. Should we consider perhaps in Committee widening the scope of the Bill, so that those convictions too are overturned? I have to say that I do not know. I should very much like to hear why the Government consider that DWP convictions are safe when CPS convictions are not. I should also like to hear what the DWP is doing to re-examine its convictions to ensure that it has not relied upon tainted Post Office evidence and investigations.
Another category of convictions not quashed by this Bill is those that have already been considered by the Court of Appeal. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said about this, and I agree with what he said. There are 13 of these cases. I am very uncomfortable indeed about this, for the following reason. The Bill overturns many hundreds of convictions. The Government accept, as they should, that some of the convictions overturned will in fact have been of sub-postmasters who were guilty of a crime. That is the price that we pay for the exoneration of the innocent. Those who have been in front of the Court of Appeal, in exactly the same way as those sub-postmasters who have been in front of other courts, may or may not be guilty. I do not think it is acceptable to tell them that they can go back to the Court of Appeal if there is new evidence, because other sub-postmasters are not being required to provide individual evidence of their innocence—a reversal of the burden of proof. These 13 sub-postmasters are being punished for their efficiency and courage in being early in taking their convictions to the Court of Appeal.
There is, of course, one new bit of evidence which the Court of Appeal did not consider in relation to these 13 cases: that all the sub-postmasters, other than these 13, are about to be exonerated. It stretches credulity to believe that the Court of Appeal would say that, out of all the hundreds of convicted sub-postmasters, it would choose for these 13 to remain convicted. Can it be fair that they should be the only sub-postmasters in the country to be left with convictions? I cannot see that the Court of Appeal would welcome a new application from them, because how could it consider anything other than the facts of these individual cases? We shall need to consider this very carefully in Committee.
The Government are to be congratulated on their speed and courage in bringing the Bill to us, but I first became involved in this matter in 2009 and Alan Bates did so in 2003. “Speed” is obviously a relative term. Let us get on with it.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
My Lords, the heroes of this story are Alan Bates and the sub-postmasters. Having been wrongly convicted, and in order to establish their innocence, they brought a piece of incredibly expensive civil litigation. This was fought all the way by the Post Office. As Sir Wyn Williams will tell us, there are signs that it deliberately suppressed evidence even then. Alan Bates won in front of a judge in the civil courts. That began the exoneration process.
As everyone else in the House has done, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, and Mr Kevan Jones. They pursued a terribly unfashionable cause for literally decades, and never gave up on it when the whole establishment was against them, including all the senior Post Office executives and its board, senior civil servants, and Ministers who did not pay enough attention. There was absolutely nothing in it for them, but they persisted. They make one admire politicians and they shame most of the rest of us.
I welcome and support the Bill. I actively support the solution adopted by the Government. I do not support the solution proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon. I say that with enormous trepidation because he is someone whom I greatly admire. His judgment is good. He took the courts through the pandemic, making good legal and wider judgments throughout. With the greatest respect to him, I think he is wrong in relation to this case.
The miscarriages of justice span a period of 22 years. The number of people wrongly convicted of serious offences and who had their lives comprehensively ruined is not known. Maybe it was 700, maybe 900. The number of people who went to jail is not known. Maybe it was 230, maybe more. The period of time in which the miscarriages lasted, the number of people affected and the lack of reliable information is quite unprecedented. The destruction of the lives and livelihoods of the sub-postmasters and their families is unspeakable. The responsibility for this lies first and foremost with the Post Office, which pursued and prosecuted them on a false basis, and Fujitsu, which knew the truth and colluded in its suppression.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, has said, a significant number—I do not know how many; I am not sure about that figure of 90%—of the convictions were on guilty pleas, often to a charge of false accounting.. Do not be comforted by that. No doubt those guilty pleas were obtained by a combination of what lawyers would have advised the defendants was the irrefutable evidence of the Horizon system. It was irrefutable not because of some principle of law but because there was simply no evidence to undermine that system—because the Post Office had suppressed such evidence. There was also the prospect of the Post Office not pursuing more serious charges if they pleaded guilty to the lesser charge—as it was presented—of false accounting.
The Bill addresses only one aspect of the scandal: how to extinguish the wrongful convictions. In many of the cases, as everyone who has spoken in this debate has identified, much of the underlying written and other material has been lost, partly because the Post Office has destroyed it and partly because the defendants want nothing more to do with what was a terrible period in their lives.
As far as the process of appealing successfully against the convictions is concerned, there have been an unspecified number of appeals against conviction in magistrates’ courts, which have generally been heard in Southwark Crown Court. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, has said, in all those appeals the Post Office called no evidence and in consequence the appeals, being by way of rehearing, were automatically allowed.
In relation to the appeals from the Crown Court, up to the end of January 106 appeals were completed in the Court of Appeal, of which 70 were allowed, 26 were withdrawn by the appellant sub-postmaster upon sight of the Post Office’s response, and seven were dismissed. I appreciate that that leaves three cases unaccounted for, which I cannot explain but which is symptomatic of the lack of reliable information about the scale and extent of the problem. The Court of Appeal, as the noble and learned Lord said, accepted the unreliability of the Horizon system. Other reasons have come to light, as he said, that should justify appeals, including and in particular the withholding of exonerating material by the Post Office in the prosecutions.
As the noble and learned Lord said, there are already well-established processes for setting aside wrongful convictions in our system. His proposal is that we would let the existing processes take their course with modifications, some of them no doubt required by primary legislation. In my view, that has a number of problems. First, it would not be possible to identify all the cases, simply because there are not the records. Many innocent sub-postmasters would not connect with the process, whether or not they wanted to, and as a result would not be exonerated.
Secondly, it would take a long time. Some 50% at least of the English cases would have to be dealt with in the Court of Appeal. I have absolutely no doubt that the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal would do its bit as quickly as reasonably possible, but time would be required to identify the cases, to prepare the appeal material, to undertake some form of investigation on the part of the prosecution, and then to list those appeals.
Thirdly, as the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, said, a significant number of sub-postmasters would refuse to participate because of their lack of faith in the system. The current system, as everyone has said, does not allow for an unwilling defendant, unless they lack capacity, to have their case referred to the Court of Appeal against their wishes.
Fourthly, it will be for the Post Office—or the Crown Prosecution Service if it replaces the Post Office as the prosecuting authority—to determine which of the appeals to contest. The evidence that Sir Wyn Williams is hearing in the inquiry suggests that little faith can be placed in the Post Office properly performing any duty placed on it in connection with Horizon. No doubt the obligations of the prosecutor can be passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, at least in England, but that would create yet further delay.
As the noble and learned Lord has said, the Lord Chancellor could be given power to refer the cases of unwilling postmasters to the Court of Appeal. There could be a presumption that the defendant was innocent unless the prosecution could actively convince the Court that the convictions were safe. None of that would obviate the need for investigation within, if not by, the prosecution at a time when the material is limited, and it would not prevent some appeals being resisted on the basis of which documents had survived. The Court of Appeal could no doubt hear cases en bloc of, say, 50 or 60 cases at a time and list them within weeks of the court being told they were ready.
All that is possible, but it would be bending our justice system out of its normal shape. Our justice system prides itself, rightly, on providing a fair and reliable system of adjudication, where above everything it decides cases on the evidence before it in accordance with settled principles of law. The courts have the key role of deciding disputes between private individuals and between the state and private individuals, without fear, favour or interference of any sort—particularly from the state. As the Executive control the legislature in our system, they can interfere with court processes by legislation. If unfavourable court decisions were overturned by legislation, the rule of law would be undermined—not where the legislation was to change the law, but where it was to overturn an inconvenient finding of fact. That is the argument of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett.
There are three alternatives. First, you could legislate to exonerate in a Bill like this. Secondly, you could use a royal pardon. Thirdly, you could adapt the current system of appeals to allow for mass exoneration by the courts. A royal pardon is inappropriate. It involves pardoning somebody for committing a crime, maybe because modern practice would not regard the act a crime. The sub-postmasters did not commit crimes. They should not have pardons; they should have exoneration.
Of the other two routes, I favour legislation like this, because it best does justice, which is the best protection for the rule of law. It is no criticism of the courts. It involves neither a slur on the judges nor the setting of a precedent which undermines the rule of law to say that the exceptional facts of this case cry out for legislation and not appeals.
This legislation identifies the group—sub-postmasters convicted in connection with their Post Office work while the Horizon system operated—and automatically and immediately exonerates them. A court process will take time. It will be much quicker than normal, but for many it will take years and not months. The court process will miss people because of the bad record keeping. If it is exoneration by court, when those missed emerge, as many will, they will not have been exonerated. Then they will have to go through a court process, when all the urgency has gone, to petition for acquittal.
The court process will produce anomalies and inconsistencies, bred very often by the uneven loss of documents and the unreliability of the Post Office. For those postmasters challenged to establish their innocence, wherever the burden lies in the court process, it is difficult to imagine that they would have faith in the conduct of such a prosecution. The legislature should take responsibility for putting this mess right, and not the courts.
What precedent does this Bill set? I completely accept what the noble and learned Lord said; it does set a precedent. It is a precedent that, where the court system, because of the exceptional nature of the miscarriage of justice, cannot effectively right the wrong, intervention by the legislature is appropriate. I cannot imagine this precedent ever being repeated. The Irish terrorist cases in the 1970s and 1980s demeaned and besmirched our court system, but they were put right by a process of appeals. The court system was able to remedy it, and to have intervened by legislation there would have been hugely undermining. The hallmarks of this exception are, first, the time it has lasted—24 years. Secondly, the need to use bulk hearings suggests that the courts cannot deal with it in a normal manner. Thirdly, justice must come soon. Fourthly, only legislation provides consistency and clarity.
Separation of powers is vital to the rule of law. The courts must be copper-bottomed, protected from interference by the legislature and the Executive. In a constitution based on parliamentary sovereignty, that separation also involves Parliament and the Executive providing necessary support for the courts in funding and in judicial appointments. It involves support in the face of public pressure, not legislating in any way that undermines the rule of law, and—very exceptionally—legislating where justice cannot be done without it.
This legislation is supportive and not undermining, so I support it in principle. I have a number of points on the detail: first is the decision to exclude from exoneration those cases which have already been dealt with by the Court of Appeal. I am strongly against that; I support the noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Browne, in saying that everybody should be exonerated. The fact that someone has got to the Court of Appeal is not a reason for not exonerating them. Those postmasters who got to the Court of Appeal almost certainly had the strongest cases because they got through; they should not be left out in the cold.
Secondly, I would be interested to hear from the Minister about the position in Scotland. If the Scottish Parliament is willing for one Bill to do it, it should be done by one Bill. Thirdly, I would like to hear why the DWP cases are being separated from everyone else. Maybe this House could contribute to this Bill by dealing with the Court of Appeal cases and the DWP cases and streamlining the position with Scotland.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I admit to being a little nervous as a non-lawyer entering a debate that has already heard from so many distinguished minds. Some may think that they have heard enough from the lawyers and do not need to hear from me.
I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the Bill. I concur with other noble Lords in hoping that it will be swiftly passed into law. The many victims of this long-running scandal and injustice must now benefit without further undue delay. As the noble Lord said in opening this debate, Parliament is not the usual route by which we overturn wrongful convictions. I echo others today, as well as what I have said in debates on other matters, in believing that we need to tread very carefully when acting in ways that move us on to territory more normally occupied by the courts and the judiciary. That is particularly important in Britain, because we give such huge weight to precedent. The Minister has, I am pleased to note, assured us that this Bill should not be considered a setting of precedent, and others have concurred. However, I think that that aspect of what we are doing merits, albeit briefly, deeper consideration. What one Government do today, no matter how warily, may be drawn on by future Governments in ways that stretch the original intentions well beyond breaking point. Our best defence against that, perhaps our only defence, is to set down very clear principles, not merely general assertions, at the outset.
Things happen very differently in different places. American presidents have regularly pardoned political cronies who have committed crimes in their support. I doubt whether many of us in your Lordships’ House would be surprised if a Republican victory later this year resulted in mass pardons, even for convicted insurrectionists. Closer to home, it is not beyond imagination that far-right movements in Europe, notorious for combining political organisation with street violence, might, should they gain a say in government, seek to overthrow their criminal associates’ convictions. Let me pick a cause closer to my own heart: let us suppose a future coalition Government here, needing the support of a minority party more to the left, were told that the price to pay included quashing the convictions of environmental protesters.
The question is how we in Britain safeguard the rule of law for the long term, while ensuring that the Post Office victims are speedily exonerated. Let me briefly offer four simple criteria; I hope that in responding to the debate the Minister will indicate whether he agrees, or has better ones to propose. I am not at all precious about my suggestions, but I am precious about respecting the role and political independence of our judges and courts. I believe that this is how we can best avoid future claims of precedent.
First, evidence has emerged since those original convictions that sets out so clearly the failings of the Horizon software that had that information, which was known within the Post Office and to Fujitsu at the time, been made available to the defence, it is unimaginable that any jury would have convicted. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any judge would have allowed a case to proceed that far. For me, this is the most compelling argument for the course of action we are taking today. Our justice system is based solidly on evidence, and where fresh and powerful evidence emerges, we need to be able to take it into account in a timely and effective way.
Secondly, I note the arguments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, who reminded us that, unless cases are looked at individually, there is a risk that someone who had stolen money might now be let off. However, the principle that it is better that a guilty person go free than an innocent one be convicted lies at the root of our British justice system. It is enshrined in the requirement that guilt be proven beyond reasonable doubt—yet it goes back much further, to the Book of Genesis and a conversation between Lot and God over the fate of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. To save time, I will leave noble Lords to look that up for themselves.
Thirdly and importantly, we are well clear of partisan political territory here. Although I know that we in this House and the other place can proceed to legislate on a simple majority, were any major grouping in your Lordships’ House to feel that the Bill contained political bias in any direction, it would not be safe for us to proceed.
Finally, as so many noble Lords have said, we are dealing with such a large number of convictions that handling them in any other way would tie up the court system and delay justice for the Post Office victims and even for others in unconnected cases, who could not get their matters to court. Hence it is that combination—the compelling new evidence, the presumption of innocence, the political neutrality and the sheer number of cases—that allows me to offer my support to the Bill.
I look forward to hearing what other criteria noble Lords adduce in favour of its passing—some have already done so—and I look forward to the response of the Front Benches in their winding-up speeches.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on moving swiftly with this process. This saga has dragged on for 20 years. A trusted public body has been guilty of the most appalling want of care, and others might say much worse. I leave that to the judgment and observations of Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry and of my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, without whose fantastic work we would not be here today.
It is evident now—we must remember this—that individuals pleaded guilty out of fear when offered charges of a lower gravity that offered the chance to avoid imprisonment. Fear in the face of overwhelming but fatally flawed evidence is what induced those pleas. Since then, the courts have in many cases, notwithstanding those guilty pleas, overturned those convictions. That highlights where we are. It is an exceptional and appalling situation, and anyone who has appeared in the Crown Court, as I used to in the first 10 years of my practice, will know what it is like when you say to someone, “Come on, the evidence is overwhelming”. Just occasionally, they do not plead guilty and, very occasionally, you get an acquittal. That is where we are; that is really important.
The Secretary of State for Justice and his Ministers have rightly seen it as a priority to go as far and as fast as they can to close this down, to bring justice to these sub-postmasters who have suffered so grievously. Speaking as a lawyer—but not so distinguished a lawyer as some who have spoken today—I have great admiration for our judges and for legal process. I thought hard about whether this statutory approach is right. Like others, I have had my misgivings, but I have come to the view that it is undoubtedly the right course. In saying this, I have the greatest respect for, and fully understand, the serious and powerful reasons for concern advanced by the former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett. We are right to be concerned about interference by Parliament with the courts. It must not happen. We have lived many happy years, relatively, since the Bill of Rights, and we must continue to do so. These two pillars of our constitution must remain separate, and we cannot interfere with the courts.
While I say that, we have to accept what has happened here. I am sure the courts could move fast, but the process of renewed appeals would none the less be complex. It would take longer than the process we are embarking on here. Quite possibly, some of the deserving sub-postmasters would die before their names were cleared. A pardon does not overturn a conviction; the conviction is still there. Innocent individuals will fall through the cracks if left to ordinary process. Some will simply not come forward; they have had enough of the courts and legal process and are exhausted. Understandably, they do not want to engage. We have to do everything we can to help them, and we cannot leave others wrongly convicted in these cases. It is clear that the Post Office’s own records relating to these prosecutions are lacking, and it has the potential to drag on however hard the judges push, so the knot must be cut. In this sense, I am happy to adopt what has been said by Dr Robert Craig, a lecturer in law at the University of Bristol. He has expressed the clear view that the legislation is justified and necessary. The whole process, he says, has been
“an affront to the conscience of the court”.
I could not put it better myself.
Looking forward, can I suggest a practical step—and I have another to suggest later—that does not require primary legislation? I suggest that it is important that, once the process is set in chain by this Bill when it becomes statute, there is established a website where any individual who wishes to know if they have in fact been cleared by the process or are eligible to be cleared but have not yet heard should be able to log on and request that they be informed where they stand and notify the powers that be of their interest. Publicity must be given to the existence of what is, in effect, a central clearing house, to make certain that people whose records may be in a brown folder somewhere are not left unhelped.
We know that, in the landmark case of Hamilton in 2021, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of 39 sub-postmasters and found their conviction by the Post Office to be an “abuse of process” and an “affront to justice”. The main issue in those appeals, we know, was the reliability of Horizon. Notwithstanding this, since that decision, 13 cases have been back to the Court of Appeal and have been held to have been safe convictions. Those are the category in Clause 3 who will stand; their convictions will not be quashed. My noble friend Lord Arbuthnot has expressed profound concerns, which I understand, about this. But the Government are in something of a dilemma here, and I understand where that starts.
None the less, Hamilton was in 2021. Since then, much more evidence has come out. Sir Wyn Williams will report within the next year. It is undoubtedly the case that much evidence will have come to light, which may cast a different light on those 13 convictions. If that is so, of course those persons can apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and ask for their appeals to be reopened. I suggest a simple, practical step. In those 13 cases, the Ministry of Justice should, in the near future when this Bill is passed, personally inform those 13 individuals that they will not be acquitted under the Bill and are in a different category but that the inquiry may well have produced new material to justify reopening it. For that purpose, they should be provided with a reasonable sum to enable them to consult solicitors and review the dismissal of their appeal in light of any fresh evidence that the inquiry or other investigations since 2021 may have brought to light.
I invite the Government to put in train the two practical measures I have indicated: namely, a website to give access to verification for individuals that they are in fact among those who will stand acquitted as a result of this legislation; and a resource for the 13 who have been convicted and whose appeals have been dismissed since 2021. With that said, I commend this Bill and wish it a safe and swift passage.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome this Bill, as it enables some postmasters wrongly convicted to secure some compensation and wipe the slate clean, though the scars of injustice will remain with them and their families for ever.
I will raise four broad areas of concern. First, as has been pointed out, Clause 1 quashes convictions prosecuted by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service only. It does not quash the 61 cases prosecuted by the DWP against postmasters in England and Wales. The DWP was the state prosecutor of postmasters until the end of 2012, when its prosecutorial function was assigned to the CPS by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Can the Minister say whether any of the CPS prosecutions being quashed were initiated by the DWP?
The omission of the DWP prosecutions from the Bill is utterly unfair. Just like the Post Office and the CPS, the DWP used Horizon-generated data and faced lies and cover-ups from the Post Office. It has now been conclusively shown that the Post Office and the CPS convictions were unsafe because of unreliable evidence, lies and cover-ups. It is hard to see why the same data, evidence and channels of generating evidence are somehow considered reliable for prosecutions by the DWP.
The DWP convictions were mostly prosecuted between 2000 and 2006, when there was a clear conspiracy of silence and cover-up around the flaws in the Horizon system and when the Post Office concealed a lot of information. Since then, many of the Crown Court transcripts and bundles of evidence relating to those convictions have been destroyed. Therefore, the Government’s argument of investigating these on a case-by-case basis is pretty much impossible and unlikely to provide any fairness to those individuals.
The DWP position is stated in a letter signed by Mrs Alison Riley, a senior lawyer with the DWP legal advisers in the Government Legal Department, from 28 September 2023, addressed to Professor Christopher Hodges of the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board:
“I can say with some confidence that in the majority of cases we have found that those cases prosecuted by the DWP did not rely on evidence from the Horizon system but rather relied on physical evidence such as order books, vouchers and date stamps”.
Let us look at those words again. The letter used the phrase
“with some confidence”,
instead of “with absolute certainty” or “with 100% confidence”. The letter seems to suggest that there is some doubt. It also used the phrase
“in the majority of cases”.
Does that mean that there were cases where somebody was wrongly prosecuted by relying upon Horizon-generated data? Were there cases in which the DWP used Horizon-generated data to secure prosecutions? How many cases were there, which this letter is perhaps not identifying? I hope the Minister will be able to tell us.
Can the Minister say whether any convictions secured by the DWP have ever been quashed by the courts, at any time, from the year 2000 onwards? Has any DWP investigator, official or witness retracted evidence given on oath? If so, that makes all the convictions unsafe. Can the Minister categorically say that all 61 cases have been independently reviewed? Which documents were reviewed, when was this done and by whom? Were the victims invited to respond to the review? Has any post-conviction disclosure ever been made to postmasters who were previously prosecuted and convicted by proceedings brought by the DWP? Were they given the appropriate information? Against a wall of silence and lies by the Post Office, some people convicted by the DWP may even have been denied appeal, but the revelations of last three years surely change that. Can the Minister say how many of those prosecuted by the DWP have actually been denied appeal and are perhaps now deserving of it?
I am reminded of the maxim of the English jurist, William Blackstone:
“It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”.
I therefore urge the Minister to amend the Bill and quash the convictions of those prosecuted by the DWP. If not, he should at the very least appoint an inquiry to examine the safety of the DWP convictions.
My second point is this. On 16 January, at Second Reading of the then Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill in this House, I urged the Minister to remove the Post Office’s involvement in setting the terms of compensation and in administering any aspect of compensation schemes, as that would only multiply the pain for postmasters. I understand from some postmasters—one of whom I spoke with earlier today—that the Post Office is still involved with the group litigation order scheme. It is also involved with the Horizon shortfall scheme, at least where some 360 to 370 disputed cases are concerned. It is good to know that there is a panel of King’s Counsels, but the problem is that the Post Office set the terms of reference, the guidance and the principles of the scheme. No matter how independent the panel, it is duty bound to follow those guiding principles. The Post Office basically cannot be trusted, and its involvement is a source of discomfort. Can the Minister shed some light on why the Post Office is still involved in these schemes, and what is to be done to remove it from them?
Thirdly, the Horizon inquiry has provided strong evidence of wrongdoings which warrant criminal charges. However, whenever any question is asked, the Minister’s standard response is that we must wait until the end of the Horizon inquiry and the subsequent report before any action is taken. That position is deeply unsatisfactory. It is hard to know why prosecutions have not already begun on the basis of evidence which has already been provided to the inquiry. Any delay would mean that many would escape justice altogether. It is quite conceivable that, in time, many will simply say that they are fragile, too old and have selective amnesia so simply cannot remember.
Just last Friday, the inquiry took evidence from Mr Rod Ismay, who used the phrase “I do not know” 125 times and said “I cannot remember” at least 40 times. What will happen when these individuals are eventually charged, possibly in another five or six years? They will simply get away. I urge the Minister to begin some criminal inquiries and charges now and not wait until the end of the inquiry.
My final point is the observation that the root cause of the Post Office scandal is the power of giant corporations to bludgeon people into submission and silence, all with a view to boosting profits, executive salaries and improving the bottom line. That is evident in many other cases: for example, P&O Ferries knowingly flouted the law to sack workers; water, rail, and energy companies are all abusing people; there is Grenfell; there is the finance industry, a serial offender in mis-selling financial products; drug companies are overcharging the NHS; G4S and Serco, which is overcharging the Government for contracts. Yet we have not really seen any move from the Government to democratise corporations, to empower the people, and to hold this unaccountable power to account. Can the Minister explain when exactly we can expect some reversal and some checks on the corporate power? People at the moment are struggling—they cannot get legal aid to take anybody to court. Regulators are, basically, in bed with many of the companies, and they are promoting competitiveness rather than safeguarding the customer’s interests. Governments are shielding corporate misdeeds. In this House, I provided evidence of how the Government shielded and covered up HSBC’s money laundering and made sure that it did not really face the full consequences. Without empowering citizens and curbing corporate power, Post Office-type scandals will recur. Can the Minister explain to the House why, in 14 years, little or nothing has been done to call corporations to account?
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, this scandal is rightly recognised as one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in the history of the English legal system. It seems so obvious now because so much has been reported, but for years hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were labelled as dishonest and convicted of dishonesty offences when they were telling the truth. One of the most fundamental elements of our justice system is that it is supposed to ensure that innocent people are found innocent because, if innocent people are at risk of being found guilty, trust in our justice system will disappear. In that light, exceptional steps are needed to put these injustices right, and although the Bill proposes a novel and controversial constitutional innovation, it is being done in aid of the powerless against the powerful and therefore, despite quite strong misgivings, I feel it is justified.
To talk about this Bill setting a precedent is to overgeneralise the circumstances of the Horizon scandal. We are not talking about overturning one or two questionable cases: we are talking about rectifying what has been revealed as an industrial enterprise to maliciously prosecute hundreds of innocent people. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, made the point about how all should be exonerated. That is absolutely right; it is not enough to create, again, two tiers of those people who were so badly treated. If such a wholescale injustice does take place again, victims and the wider public can be assured that Parliament will intervene on behalf of the powerless against the powerful to secure justice, but let us all hope this is the first and last time that this unprecedented legislation is ever justified.
There is a grey cloud hanging over this Bill: to have real justice, Fujitsu’s role should be thoroughly investigated and prosecutions should start. As the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, said, it is wrong to wait until the end of the inquiry, because we already know that Fujitsu was guilty of many infractions. It was aware of the problems from the start. It was aware of its employees having remote access and, in 2009, Computer Weekly made it aware of the link between the glitches in the Horizon system and the prosecution of sub-postmasters. The chief executive of Fujitsu at the time, Roger Gilbert, said that Computer Weekly was not a publication to which he subscribed, so he clearly could not know anything about it. His press office was scandalously lax.
Fujitsu is still a major government contractor which gives money to the Conservative Party. It has numerous other government contracts and, for ideological reasons, the Government have been outsourcing all their IT expertise—exactly as the Post Office does. The next Government need to reverse this process and take that expertise back in house, or at least employ enough in-house expertise to know when a company is getting it wrong, hiding the truth or providing a service that is a complete liability and security risk. If you let major corporations run your Government, taxpayers will be ripped off and find that they are paying out millions when things go wrong.
I have two final points. First, Fujitsu should be in the dock and prosecutions should already have begun. Secondly, Fujitsu should pay the costs back to sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses, not us taxpayers.
Lord Etherton (CB)
My Lords, the Horizon scandal was described in the Explanatory Notes as a
“miscarriage of justice of unparalleled scale and impact”.
I do not know of anyone who would challenge that description. I certainly would not. It has had a devastating impact on huge numbers of sub-postmasters over a long period, leading to shattered lives, including huge trauma and mental distress, suicides, financial and reputational ruin, and the loss of a normal happy retirement.
The sub-postmasters, who have waited for far too long for recognition of their suffering and of the injustice that has overwhelmed their lives, deserve a speedy and simple route to bring that suffering and injustice to an end. The question for this House is whether this Bill is, in all respects, appropriate to achieve that goal.
The difficulty, which we must confront head on, is that the Bill infringes one of the most fundamental and critical tenets of our constitution: the independence of the judiciary. The judiciary is one of the three pillars of our constitution—the Executive, Parliament and judiciary. Each of those has its allotted function, providing the checks and balances essential for a democratic state.
Increasingly, in our own state, there has been a blurring of lines between the Executive and Parliament. The Minister, in his opening address, said that it is really Parliament and not the Executive that should be regarded as the body responsible for the legislative acquittals en masse provided for in the Bill. The reality, however, is that the Executive, especially one with a significant majority in the other place, almost always secure the implementation of their policies—an elective dictatorship, it has been called.
Reducing the Bill to its essence, the Executive are using Parliament to strip the judiciary of one of its central functions—determining who is guilty and who is not guilty of a criminal offence. That intrusion into the judicial pillar of the state is made as plain as could be from the wording of Clause 7(1), which states that
“a person whose conviction is quashed by section 1(1) is to be treated as if, on the coming into force of this Act, the conviction had been quashed by a court on an appeal”.
It is a characteristic of every autocracy and dictatorship that the Executive directly or indirectly nullify one or more aspects of judicial independence. History has demonstrated that there can be no liberty without judicial independence. This may seem a long way from the benign Bill that we are now debating, but it is not. We must guard our basic constitutional norms ferociously. Perhaps the most important duty of this House, performing its essential role as a check and balance in the lawmaking process, is to do precisely that when it is faced with draft legislation that is the result more of political expediency than of constitutional compliance.
Paragraph 24 of the Explanatory Notes states, as did the Minister, that
“the Bill does not set any constitutional precedent”.
That, however, is a quite meaningless statement. Of course, the Bill does not set any constitutional precedent since no Parliament can bind a future Parliament—each one is sovereign. By contrast, the Bill, if enacted, will provide an historical example of an overreach by the Executive, through Parliament, into the judicial pillar of the state. In that sense it is indeed a precedent for any Government with a sufficient parliamentary majority, even where the object of the Government is not a benign one.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, suggested that the precedent was a very narrow one, in effect, confining it to the precise facts and circumstances of the present scandal. I see no reason at all why a non-benign Executive should not take the wider view that I have just described.
The precedent is all the more egregious because, contrary to the impression created by the Explanatory Notes, it is not at all clear that the Bill is necessary to achieve the desired objective. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, has described several practical arguments as to why our constitutional norms can be preserved while delivering the justice that the sub-postmasters so urgently require. I wish to make one or two points in relation to this.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, the Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales, addressed the Justice Committee of the other place on 16 January this year on the Prime Minister’s announcement the previous week that there would be emergency legislation to quash en masse the convictions of people prosecuted by the Post Office on the basis of Horizon data. The Lady Chief Justice refuted any suggestion that the judiciary had given the proposed legislation the green light. She said that she had had two short conversations with the Justice Secretary at his urgent request, and that was the extent of the consultation that had taken place. She also refuted any suggestion that the courts had been unable to cope with the cases or would be unable to cope with future volumes.
Where do we find anywhere, in the Explanatory Notes or elsewhere, any analysis by the Government of why the courts would be unable to make special arrangements for expedited appeals in relation to all convictions, or as to how quickly that could be done? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, gave a range of speculative difficulties that would arise in relation to a wide variety of matters. As I understand it, he acknowledged that it might be possible to provide alternative arrangements that would satisfy the giving of justice in a speedy and effective way but said that this would result in bending our justice system out of balance. But all of this is a balance. I suggest it is better to bend the justice system out of its ordinary shape—if this can be done, as I think it can—if that would give proper, fair and speedy restitution and acquittals to the sub-postmasters, rather than drive a coach and horses through one of our most important and fundamental constitutional norms.
The second point I wish to emphasise in relation to the various examples given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is that, as I have mentioned, his examples of difficulties and his expansion of the problems are all speculative. As far as I am aware, there has been no proper discussion between the Executive and the senior judiciary as to what it might be possible to achieve. The truth of the matter is that every problem said to make the Bill a necessity is capable of resolution without legislative en masse acquittals, including speed of appeals, reluctance of those convicted to become further involved in our court proceedings, lack of evidence, and the test for a successful appeal against conviction. I do not accept that these matters are impossible of achievement outside the context of the present Bill.
What we need is evidence of actual discussions as to what is viable, rather than to deal with speculation as to what may or may not occur. For my part, in the absence of any clear and public explanation by the Government, following discussions with the senior judiciary, and for the reasons I have given, I do not consider that it would be right to support the approach of acquitting through this legislation all those who have been convicted.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, this has been a sober and serious Second Reading—understandably so. How does one even begin to find the words to describe such an unspeakable set of circumstances? Perhaps one pulls on the words of those who have been faced with many miscarriages of justice: the CCRC itself described this as
“the most widespread miscarriage of justice”
it had seen. It is for that reason at least that I support this legislation.
I am well aware, and completely supportive, of the separation of powers, and the fine and delicate balance of our unwritten constitution, but in passing this legislation, it is as clear as it can be that Parliament will be carrying out the will of the people. It is also clear that this will set a precedent. I am delicately untroubled by that, because it sets a precedent for a set of circumstances where, were they to occur again, it may well be the case that the will of the people and Parliament need to step in. It is that set of circumstances which—I say delicately and with respect—argue against the claims that this tends towards autocracy and totalitarianism.
This is not something that any of us are undertaking lightly, but it is a means of securing justice for those who have waited far too long, many serving prison sentences and all carrying the sentence of having been convicted, often for decades. This is why I believe Parliament is right to take this Bill through, to enable justice around in the most timely manner. It is difficult to even call it “timely”, bearing in mind how long this has already taken.
To ensure justice and equity for all those who have suffered for so long, I need to ask my noble friend the Minister: how can the Government act to ensure that justice for all happens on a similar, if not identical, timeline? How can the Government, while understanding the reserved nature of the Post Office and the devolved nature of justice, work even more with the Scottish Parliament to ensure that all postmistresses and postmasters in Scotland can achieve justice at the same time or in a similar timeframe to those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Similarly, as other noble Lords have rightly stated, it seems inequitable for those who have already been to the Court of Appeal to be excluded from this legislation. They are effectively being punished for having been able to pursue their claims quickly and effectively, only to find themselves receiving no remedy and the outcome that the court, at that stage and on the evidence provided, delivered for them. We know that justice delayed is justice denied. We have the opportunity to at least bring justice through the legislative process—yes, it is novel and unprecedented—through this Bill.
I turn to the means by which the private prosecutions were brought about in the first place: Section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. Many members of the public were shocked to discover that the Post Office could pursue such prosecutions in this manner. They were even more shocked when they realised that this was a power in no sense available just to the Post Office but available across the piece. The Post Office was effectively acting as investigator and prosecutor in cases where it was the alleged victim. Does my noble friend the Minister not agree that this is self-evidently prima facie problematic?
If we are to deliver justice for all those who have suffered, how many sub-postmistresses and sub-postmasters will be left with their convictions not quashed even after this legislation is passed? As much as we can be clear on the numbers, there are approaching 1,000 convictions and so far—again, as much as we can know—around 103 convictions have been quashed: 10%. This Bill, when it comes into statute, will certainly address a large number of those convictions, but how many people—to the Minister’s best knowledge, on the evidence he has available to him—will still be left unhelped after we pass this legislation?
Without moving away from the serious matter of today, I would like to ask the Minister about what thoughts the Government have put to reflecting on Section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. What are the safeguards? How did they work in these instances? Are the Government satisfied to continue with this legislation in its current form? Is the Law Commission looking into this?
Similarly, looking to a potential future beyond this unprecedented set of circumstances, what are the Government’s thoughts in terms of the future of the Post Office? It is a unique entity. It has been in our communities, on most of our high streets, for over half a millennium—but 500 years-plus of history does not give any organisation any right necessarily to continue in any form. Does the Minister agree that urgent thought on the structure of the Post Office, potentially looking at mutualisation or other such models, could, at least once we are through this, enable a brighter, better Post Office?
With sub-postmistresses and sub-postmasters, the pillars of our community, knowing our communities and the business better than anybody else, would it not make sense to have their voices, past and present, involved in shaping that future? In equalities discussions, there is a useful mantra, “Nothing about us without us”. I gently suggest that that mantra should apply to considerations about the Post Office going forward, where all the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses right across the country are able to have a voice in shaping what needs to be a very different future for the Post Office.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My comments are, as we say in politics, from the grass roots about what some postmasters are saying and their feelings. As for the legal matters of this case, I leave it to your Lordships’ great legal minds.
I wholeheartedly support this Bill. It is long overdue, and the sooner we get it on the statute book, the better. The sub-postmasters have suffered long enough. The sooner we close this shameful chapter in our Post Office history, the better. This Bill must give faith to all those who have lost theirs in our justice system and in the Post Office management. Most important of all, I hope the end result of this Bill will satisfy all the sub-postmasters and that they will be properly compensated for their suffering.
I fully support the blanket quashing of their convictions or any other wrongdoing they are accused of, wherever the Post Office acted as judge, jury and executioner. Let me make it quite plain from the outset that my heart goes out to each and every one of the victims of this scandal, whatever their background and whichever community they belong to. This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the history of our country.
Although all sub-postmasters were treated badly, some were subjected to extra layers of suffering. I bring to noble Lords’ attention in particular the victims who had an Asian heritage or background, although my concern is equally applicable to those from African and Caribbean backgrounds as well. This issue was reported on “Newsnight” around Christmas time by Sima Kotecha, one of its journalists. According to a Post Office survey in 2012, over 40% of the sub-postmasters in the UK were from an Asian background. Personally, I think that it could be more than that. They run the post offices not only in inner cities where there are large ethnic-minority populations but in small villages up and down the country.
When the news of this miscarriage of justice began to break over 20 years ago in local media and on social media, Asian sub-postmasters were the hardest hit, for two reasons. First, it was alleged that the Post Office officials investigating them treated them with racial malice and disdain. Their comments, which are in the public domain, include, “All you foreigners are the same—money grabbers—stealing money from the Post Office and sending it to your own country”. It was reported that they were often spoken to with condescending language and in a different tone. Secondly, there is the importance of shame and family reputation in the Asian community. Every culture and society is perceptive to social shame, but because of the closeness of the Asian society, it is more keenly felt by them. To understand it, you have to be Asian and of a certain age—like me.
Some of these Asians came to the UK with nothing, and out of their sheer hard work they built a comfortable lifestyle for themselves and their families. It is a well-known fact that some Asians work hard not for themselves but to leave behind something for their children, so that they would not have to go through all the same problems again. When they are falsely accused of being thieves, that is the deepest cut of all in the community. They try to hide not just from their community but from themselves. Worst of all is what their children and grandchildren think of them.
It is no wonder that some of the sub-postmasters suffered mental breakdowns and tried to commit suicide. Take the case of Jess Kaur, from the West Midlands, and the ordeal that the Post Office put her through. I have spoken with her a number of times. She had 14 electric shock treatments. When she was in hospital for her treatment, the Post Office did not believe her, so it sent its own doctor to verify her condition. How low can you get? We all pray to God that Jess will recover from her terrible ordeal soon.
Another Asian lady, Rubbina Shaheen, from Shropshire, my home county, lost everything—her business and her home—and was forced to live in a van on the streets of Shrewsbury. She said that she felt suicidal. Another Asian lady, Seema Misra, from London, was sent to jail while pregnant. Mrs Kashmir Kaur Gill, from Oxford, was prosecuted in 2009 for false accounting and was given a five-year suspended sentence. Her reputation and that of her family was destroyed in the community. She suffered decades of hell and developed a mental health problem. I could go on and on with these examples.
On Asian suffering, I do not think that the famous ITV drama that we all know even scratched the surface of this race and cultural issue. I hope that the Bill will acknowledge these particular issues. As I said earlier, my heart goes out to all the sub-postmasters, irrespective of their background.
Finally, it is my personal view that although all the Post Office senior managers, directors, chief executives and solicitors, and software company managers and directors—who went above and beyond the call of duty to protect the Post Office brand and their jobs and did not care about the human suffering—have apologised, as have all who have been giving evidence to the Williams inquiry and to Parliament, apologies are just words in the wind. There should be some kind of financial sanction on them. That I leave to your Lordships, with thanks for letting me make these comments.
Lord Sentamu (CB)
My Lords, I was not intending to speak, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and other noble Lords here, have posed for me a conundrum. By the way, I live in a village where there is a Conundrum road, right near the Scottish border. When you face a conundrum, what do you do? I want to support this Bill, but I have a problem: the issue that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, raised about the 13 people whose appeals were turned down. If you include them in this Bill, you would be directly interfering with the Court of Appeal, by saying to the court that you do not agree with what it did and so are pardoning these people.
My suggestion is that, in the light of the evidence that we have been hearing at the inquiry, the Minister and the Government need to go back and find other lawyers to see whether there is still fresh evidence that can emerge, so that those 13 people can go back to the Court of Appeal. My worry is that, if you legislate en bloc, as has been suggested, you run the danger that you are definitely interfering and telling the Court of Appeal that its decision was not the right one. That needs resolving. If you do not resolve it for the likes of me, I will find myself in a conundrum.
Secondly, why do the Department for Work and Pensions convictions not require the same examination as for all other convictions? Somebody somewhere has got to bend their mind to those 61 cases. If you do not do it, you give the impression that they had better evidence, and that because people have not appealed it is therefore not going to be followed up on.
For me, this Bill should not have a say in what the Court of Appeal’s decision was in those 13 cases. On the Department for Work and Pensions, again I suggest that somebody needs to look afresh at those 61 cases and at whether there is a possibility—not through this Bill—of fresh hearings by the Court of Appeal.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow so many noble Lords in speaking at this Second Reading.
On these Benches, we too support the Bill. I am grateful that the right reverend Prelate pointed out that there is not one single party grouping or other grouping against it. That speaks to the highly unusual circumstances. While I am sure that will not entirely comfort the noble and learned Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Etherton, I hope it will give them some reassurance that the Bill is meeting the issues that they both raised about the potential for future totalitarian moves. If you read the progress of this Bill in another place, you will see that exactly the same happened there. There was much thought about the difficulties of the constitution and how this fits in while trying to balance that with the difficult circumstances the country finds itself in following this extraordinary miscarriage of justice.
I thank the Minister for our meeting last week. I also thank the House of Lords Library and the Law Society for their helpful briefings. I am speaking from these Benches today in the absence of my noble friend Lord Fox, who hopes to be able to join us for the next stage of the Bill.
For those of us who perhaps have been sad enough to sit and watch many of the hours of evidence in this phase of the inquiry, it is vital to remember that the lives of the sub-postmasters and other Post Office front-line staff have been ruined by Post Office Ltd and Fujitsu. Both of them convinced magistrates, juries and judges that the software package could not be accessed remotely. As the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, outlined and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, also spoke about, Fujitsu will need to face justice, as will the management at Post Office Ltd. Evidence in recent weeks has now put into the public domain the fact that staff at both organisations knew many years ago that it was possible to access Horizon remotely, and that it was done to remedy glitches and errors.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, referred to the oral evidence of Rod Ismay as unimpressive. Helpfully, though, the written evidence presented to him from emails and reports during that period made absolutely plain who knew what and when. Despite that, since 2000, the Post Office has prosecuted some 730 individuals, many of whom were convicted and imprisoned on what appear to have been false evidence and assertions. Many were not only bankrupted but lost their homes, their businesses and the faith of their local communities when they served in their local Post Office branch, as the noble Lord, Sahota, rightly pointed out. As we have heard, some postmasters committed suicide.
As with other scandals, such as the infected blood victims, compensation and interim compensation schemes have been set up. Those whose convictions have not yet been quashed are ineligible to apply for them. The Horizon Compensation Advisory Board has made a specific recommendation that all the affected sub-postmasters’ convictions are unsafe and should be swiftly overturned. As I have already outlined, what we are hearing in the inquiry reinforces this beyond any shadow of doubt. We must leave it to Sir Wyn Williams to present his report and his findings in due course, but it is evident that things have gone badly wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, reminded me of a software engineer’s description of error-filled software. I am married to an engineer who is involved with software. A common phrase in our family is “garbage in, garbage out”. Yet, one of the problems of this case is that everybody believed that the software was invincible. Therein lay the miscarriage of justice.
It is public knowledge, through both the Court of Appeal judgment in 2021 and the evidence given under oath at the public inquiry, that the technical reason relied on for every single prosecution was that it was impossible for anyone, apart from the sub-postmaster, to access an individual’s account. We know that that was demonstrably untrue. Worse, POL and Fujitsu continued to rely on it, even when they knew it was not the case. That is an even worse miscarriage of justice. On these grounds alone, every single one of the remaining Horizon convictions should be overturned.
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, for saying that the judiciary could and should be able to proceed with appeals. There are real concerns about capacity, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, said. The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, also expressed concerns about the timescale. We know that there is a large backlog in cases coming to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, let alone the issue of finding time in the Court of Appeal. The one thing that we have heard from every speaker today is that these issues must be resolved at pace.
Some convicted postmasters are dying. Others are at retirement age, having lost everything decades ago as a result of these convictions. It is not just unfair that they cannot access justice swiftly; this is itself an injustice. I support the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, about DWP convictions between 2000 and 2006 being treated differently from CPS convictions. Will the Minister ensure that the DWP is required now to assess its prosecutions in this case? I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for going into further detail on the question of DWP convictions being reliable. Given that Post Office Ltd has now given up its right to conduct prosecutions, I wonder whether the same should be true for the DWP.
I have questions for the Minister that I warned him about last week. First, in Clause 2, the relevant offence is defined by time, between 1996 and 2018, and by offence; Clause 2(6) specifically mentions the Horizon system, as does Clause 10; and Clause 8 provides a power for the Secretary of State to make further consequential provision. The Delegated Powers Committee supplementary memorandum confirms the narrow scope, and all this should give reassurance to the House that that is true.
However, there is a problem. The system prior to Horizon, Capture, is now revealed to have had serious software glitches and errors in the same way. I am grateful that the Government have now instituted an inquiry into that, although, hopefully, of a more limited nature. The Independent newspaper reported that former sub-postmasters had suffered unexplained shortfalls caused by Capture, which was rolled out in the early 1990s. Details show that the Post Office knew Capture was prone to faults and glitches, yet prosecutions went ahead.
Following the inquiry that the Government have now instigated into the Capture convictions, would it be possible—I suspect the answer is no—to add Capture to the Horizon inquiry? Yes, the software definitely predated Horizon, but everything else, including the bizarre and unexpected shortfalls and the way the Post Office conducted the prosecutions, including repeated assertions, is very similar to the Horizon case. If that is not possible but the Capture inquiry comes to the same conclusions as are now evident from the Horizon inquiry, what route to redress is available for the Capture postmasters?
The noble Lords. Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Sandhurst, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, spoke of the 13 people post the Hamilton case who had their sentences upheld by the Court of Appeal, of whom seven are entitled to appeal but six were refused leave. Assuming that the final inquiry report confirms that cases relating to Horizon should never have been brought to court because of the Post Office relying in every case on Horizon, saying repeatedly that it was not possible for anyone to be able to access postmasters’ Horizon accounts, can the Secretary of State ensure that these cases are entitled to make an application to appeal? There are consequential rights, although the Bill says they are limited in scope, for the Secretary of State to do so. Would a particular finding from the inquiry be something that could happen? The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, said he believed those people would not be able to get any of their convictions overturned under the Bill. Is that true? He is shaking his head, so if I misunderstood him then I apologise. Could the Secretary of State’s power be used in regulation as it relates to Horizon?
I hope we will be able to progress with the same carefulness with which we started this Second Reading.
Lord Sandhurst (Con)
Under Clause 3(2) of the Bill, you do not get your appeal allowed if it has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
I am referring to Clause 8, which is the power of the Secretary of State to make further consequential provision. I wondered whether the recommendations and report from the Horizon inquiry might be able to be used by the Secretary of State to make that happen.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister and the departmental team for their work on this Bill and for being available to meet me, my noble friend Lord Leong and others from across the House.
In reading back over some of my speeches from 2019, 2020 and 2021—I am just a newbie to this—one theme shines through, and that is the sheer injustice of the Post Office Ltd and Fujitsu scandal. I use Post Office and Fujitsu rather than Horizon, as Horizon is just a faceless IT system. The Post Office Ltd is culpable, with senior management to blame, the board negligent and the department and its representatives missing. There are two main parties to this: Fujitsu and Post Office Ltd. I am sure we will come back to the board, the individuals, the non-execs and the department representatives, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has raised many times in previous debates.
Naturally, I pay tribute to the many sub-postmasters and mistresses who have campaigned tirelessly for justice. Their resolve in the face of unimaginable levels of abuse and suffering is testament to their courage. It was their stories that galvanised the country behind taking the urgent and unprecedented action in this Bill. Although it may have been a television drama that finally ignited public consciousness on this issue, I also want to reiterate the tributes to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and to Kevan Jones MP, for their years of work in Parliament and outside to lay bare the great injustices and the fight of the sub-postmasters and mistresses.
This is not an academic debate; this is fundamentally about people’s lives. I am not a lawyer, but I understand the focus on legal precedents, the debate around the judiciary, Executive and Parliament, and the inference on the constitution and the independence of the judiciary. But this is about people. That is the balance this House needs to reach.
I made a speech in 2020 in response to the court case Bates v Post Office, which was settled in 2019, in which I mentioned a number of individual cases. My noble friend Lord Sahota has touched on two of those, but it is worth putting on record what happened to those individuals. There was Seema Misra, who ran a post office with her husband in Surrey. Time and again she had to put her own money into the till. A shortfall of £80,000 was ultimately found and she was sentenced to 15 months in jail while pregnant with her second child. Rubbina Shaheen was jailed for 12 months in 2010 after she was accused of stealing over £40,000 from the Greenfields post office in Shrewsbury. We all know Jo Hamilton’s story. Jo was accused of taking £36,000 from a village shop she ran in Hampshire. After pleading guilty to false accounting to avoid a more serious charge, she gave up her shop and found it difficult to get a new job due to her criminal record. During today’s debate, we must not lose sight of the impact of the failures on those families.
This is an important Bill, and those of us on these Benches support it wholeheartedly. Labour committed itself to working with the Government to ensure the best possible outcome for the victims. I am glad that the Government agree with us that these wrongful convictions ought to be quashed and that compensation needs to be delivered urgently.
I am particularly encouraged by the Minister’s desire to see convictions overturned prior to the Summer Recess. That deals with a number of the legal arguments about other options. If we followed those, the overturning of convictions would not happen before the Summer Recess. I am glad that the Government have worked constructively with Members of the other place to expand the terms to include Northern Irish sub-postmasters in the Bill. It is our hope that the Scottish Parliament also soon passes a similar Bill, as my noble friend Lord Browne touched on, so that victims all across the UK can benefit from having their convictions overturned.
This is one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in British legal history, and I am heartened to see people from across all parties and none working together to deliver justice for those innocent people who have served at the heart of our communities. The many stories we have heard in this debate in this House and the other place never fail to shock me, and they emphasise the sheer scale of the suffering that this scandal has caused.
The noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, touched on Justice Fraser’s judgment in 2019. We have come a long way since 2019, but we have not come that far, and it is worth reminding ourselves. I was very struck by the vivid language that Justice Fraser used in his judgment, stating that Post Office Ltd demonstrated
“the most dreadful complacency, and total lack of interest in investigating these serious issues …”
amounting to
“the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat”.
The judge concluded that sub-postmasters were treated in
“capricious or arbitrary ways which would not be unfamiliar to a mid-Victorian factory-owner”.
It does beg the question, though: how did our judicial system allow so many sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses to be found guilty over so many years? It is deeply shameful that justice did not come quickly enough for those sub-postmasters who died or killed themselves before they could find redress. We want now to see justice for all victims. How confident is the Minister—this has been a theme throughout the debate—in the identifying criteria? Can he assure the House that all those affected are included in it?
It is important that we recognise the impact on sub-postmasters’ families, as the Lost Chances for the Children of Sub-Postmasters campaign group has highlighted. I also look forward to the publication of Wyn Williams’ inquiry report, as it will give an important opportunity to reflect more broadly on how we may be able to resolve further issues in a timely and dignified manner.
It will be vital for the legal system and the Government, as well as corporate bodies, to learn the lessons of these cases. As I said in a debate on this issue in January, we need to see a cultural change that sees an end to the constant stream of scandal after scandal. The destruction of people’s lives, the cover-ups, the vindictive way in which victims were treated once they came forward, the lethargic way in which justice is served, the culture of not being held responsible for failure and instead even being rewarded—that must all end. It remains my hope that this brings about a serious shift in the way that those in positions of power are permitted to act.
I am glad that the Bill can give sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses some relief, dignity and official acknowledgment of their innocence. However, it is important to note that this is an exceptional Bill and an isolated case. The House’s agreement on this Bill must never be misconstrued as any kind of desire to set a precedent. The independence of the judiciary must be upheld. I welcome the Government’s reassurances on this particular concern, but I ask for more. Will the Minister consider a more explicit element in the Bill? In addition, can he elaborate on the decision to include CPS prosecutions but not the DWP ones or the 13 Court of Appeal cases, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and touched on by a number of noble Lords and noble Baronesses?
We on these Benches welcome this vital piece of legislation, but of course this is not the end: there is more to be done to right the wrongs. The Bill is a positive step on the road to justice for victims. It may not be the final destination but it is nevertheless an important milestone. I will finish with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, which are a great subtitle for the Bill: “the price that we pay for the exoneration of the innocent”. They are fine words.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My Lords, this has been a thoughtful and considered debate, and I am grateful for the broad and insightful contributions from noble Lords across the House. I was particularly grateful for the opening contributions of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Falconer of Thoroton and Lord Burnett of Maldon, one speaking as a former Lord Chancellor and the other as a former Lord Chief Justice. They were able to frame so eloquently the two potential solutions available to your Lordships’ House to right these wrongs.
The Government acknowledge that the quashing of convictions by an Act of Parliament is an exceptional step, but we believe it is required to respond to a factually exceptional situation. We know that many postmasters are simply too traumatised or disenchanted with authority to consider appealing, no matter how easy we make it. They want to see no further lawyer or court; they are scunnered. In many cases, evidence simply no longer exists anyway in order to help their cases. The scale and circumstances of prosecutorial and investigatory misconduct over such an extended period are unique in our history. The scale of this miscarriage of justice is an affront to the rule of law itself. Therefore, it is right that the Government intervene to deliver justice to hundreds of postmasters, who deserve this without having to make a huge amount of effort themselves. We need to do this while respecting the delicate constitutional balance so eloquently put forward by a number of noble and learned Lords this afternoon.
I will start by covering the legislative approach we are taking. I understand the concerns of the noble and learned Lords, Lord Burnett of Maldon and Lord Etherton, and the right relevant Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. We all share their respect for an independent judiciary. I have been clear that the Bill is not a comment on the outstanding work of the courts and judiciary, which have dealt swiftly with the cases before them. I am cognisant of the assurances given by the judiciary that it would move fast in this case.
However, I respectfully disagree with how the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, characterised the legislation. We agree that the separation of powers is a vital part of our justice system, but public confidence and faith in the system are also vital. This is a miscarriage of justice on a scale never seen before, and the circumstances are exceptional. We have carefully considered other approaches, including court processes. However, ultimately, no reform short of this legislative approach provides the swift remedy needed as a result of these unprecedented circumstances.
Many postmasters would not see justice through the courts, because much of the evidence about individual cases has now been destroyed or because many postmasters no longer trust the criminal justice system and therefore will not come forward. It is therefore right that the Government take action to put this right.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, raised the possibility of legislating to give Ministers powers to refer cases to the Court of Appeal and assume that all convictions were wrongful unless new evidence was presented. Reconsideration of cases by the Court of Appeal would take time even if court processes were expedited. Further, a presumption that all relevant convictions are unsafe is rebuttable, and we cannot be sure that every case would pass through the courts swiftly and without adjournments. This approach would not avoid interfering with the independence of the judiciary; it would raise other constitutional concerns, as it would make an assumption about the outcome of the cases being referred, meaning that the Government were still interfering in the judicial process of the senior appellate court.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, also spoke about comments made by the Lady Chief Justice. She said that in over 90% of cases the defendants pleaded guilty. We are not able to verify this figure, which in itself tells noble Lords quite a lot about this case. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, rightly raised, we are also aware, from Sir Wyn Williams’ inquiry, of evidence suggesting that individuals pleaded guilty because they were told to or felt under pressure.
I turn to the specific issue of the Court of Appeal cases, which was highlighted at the beginning of the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, and then raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. This is a difficult issue; I thank noble Lords for raising it.
Let us start by reminding your Lordships’ House of the unprecedented and constitutionally sensitive nature of this legislation. That is why it is vital that we legislate in a way which respects the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary as far as possible. Including convictions that have been upheld by the Court of Appeal would override decisions taken by the senior judiciary. Of the 13 such cases we know of, seven were upheld by the Court of Appeal and six were refused leave to appeal. They are excluded from the Bill because the Government believe we should tread very carefully where judges in the senior appellate court have considered a case on its merits. We recognise that this approach may leave a small number of individuals concerned about the way forward for their cases. In cases where the Court of Appeal has upheld a conviction, the usual routes of appeal remain available to them.
I turn to the matter of the DWP cases—
Baroness Brinton (LD)
I am sure that is right for the seven who could appeal, but there were six who were not given leave to appeal. What would their route be to getting justice?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My understanding is that six were given no right to appeal because it was considered they did not have the evidence to do so; in effect, they are considered with the 13 whose convictions were not overturned. Therefore, they are included within the same category.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
I have been focusing on the recent trips to the Court of Appeal. I do not know whether there were trips to the Court of Appeal in the immediate aftermath of the convictions that started in 1996. Are we talking only about recent trips to the Court of Appeal or are we including trips that might have been a decade ago, before the nature of the scandal was known?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My Lords, I will cross-check the record, but my understanding is that these 13 cases are recent and came to the Court of Appeal after the Hamilton judgment, so the courts were aware of the background in those cases.
The noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, Lord Sikka and Lord McNicol, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, questioned why this legislation does not include the cases prosecuted by the DWP, which we believe amount to 62. The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, asked whether any DWP-prosecuted cases were quashed; we are not aware of any convictions being quashed by the Court of Appeal. These cases, unlike many of the cases prosecuted by the Post Office or the CPS, involved wider corroborating evidence beyond that supplied by the faulty Horizon system, so are unlikely to be unsafe in the same way. The existing and established appeal processes remain available in relation to these cases.
I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Holmes of Richmond, about the importance of delivering financial redress as quickly as possible. I am pleased to say that, as of 30 April, we have paid out more than £200 million in redress to over 2,800 claimants. Under the main Horizon shortfall scheme, 88% of claims have now been received and 72% paid out. We are going as fast as we can; we are reliant on the appeals coming forward and claimants making claims. We expect that, at the moment, many of those with overturned convictions are waiting for this Bill to pass and we expect their claims to come in more quickly following this legislation.
Financial redress is clearly not in scope of this legislation, but I hope it reassures noble Lords to know that, once the necessary legislation has been passed, we will provide a route to full, fair and rapid financial redress for quashed convictions. We will include information about redress in the notifications which we send to postmasters when their convictions are overturned. Our aim is that the redress process will follow seamlessly from the process of overturning convictions.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
Before we leave the issue of DWP convictions, can the Minister confirm or otherwise—he might wish to write—whether any DWP investigator, official or witness has at any point retracted evidence given under oath to any Crown Court?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I will need to write to the noble Lord on that point.
As my colleague in the other place, Minister Hollinrake, said, we want to minimise any pause between the Bill coming into effect and redress payments being made.
To be clear, the GLO compensation scheme is independent of the Post Office. As requested by postmasters in our consultation, it is run by the Department for Business and Trade. Claims which are not agreed will be assessed by a panel whose members are independent of government and the Post Office. Any errors in decisions from the independent panel can be taken to the reviewer of the GLO scheme, Sir Ross Cranston. The Government are funding postmasters with overturned convictions to receive independent legal advice on their claims and offers. Retired High Court judge Sir Gary Hickinbottom has been put in place to chair an independent panel to resolve disputes on pecuniary losses. Horizon shortfall scheme claims are assessed by an independent panel of experts who provide a recommendation to the Post Office. To date, there have not been any instances where the Post Office has offered a lower amount than the recommendation of the panel.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, raised the accountability of Post Office executives. We await the outcome of the Wyn inquiry, which will provide clarity on this issue. Finding people guilty without looking at all the evidence is how we got into this mess in the first place. Postmasters were prosecuted without proper disclosure; we must not make the same mistake again in holding people accountable for this scandal, however tempting it might be. The public can be very reassured by the detailed investigation being conducted in public by Sir Wyn Williams. Each week reveals more shocking news, and I have no doubt that justice will be served by the inquiry.
A number of noble Lords have quite rightly mentioned Fujitsu. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has raised Fujitsu and its role in the scandal a number of times in this Chamber. It is right that the company has voluntarily decided not to bid for future government contracts for the time being while the inquiry is ongoing, unless the Government ask it to. The Government also welcome Fujitsu acknowledging that it has a moral obligation to contribute to compensation. The Government are in active conversations with the company at a very senior level about this.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, who has consistently raised the concept of the interrogation of computer evidence used in prosecutions. The Government are committed to preventing any further miscarriages of justice, like the Horizon scandal. There has been a proliferation of digital material in modern criminal cases, particularly in cases such as fraud and serious sexual offending but also in lower-level high-volume offences such as drink-driving. For this reason, any hasty changes to the legal position risk serious and significant unintended consequences for the running of the criminal justice system. However, the Lord Chancellor is fully considering all options available, and more consideration can be given to this matter and reported to the House through this process.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Lord Holmes of Richmond, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, for their comments on the territorial extent of the Bill. We all wish to see justice being applied in all four parts of the United Kingdom. The other place has agreed to extend the Bill to Northern Ireland, in recognition of the unique challenges faced by the Northern Ireland Executive in bringing forward their own in a similar timeframe to the rest of the UK. Their legislative process is lengthy and difficult to expedite, and the legislation would have to compete with the many other priorities accumulated during the two-year suspension of the Assembly. The Government are also cognisant of the extent of cross-community support for the extension of the Bill to Northern Ireland.
The Government’s position on Scotland remains unchanged. Scotland does not face the same challenges in bringing forward legislation within its Parliament as Northern Ireland does. It is for the Scottish Government to bring forward their own proposals to address prosecutions, and for those to be scrutinised by the Scottish Parliament in line with the devolution settlement. I hope that reassures the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, that my officials have been supporting their counterparts in the Scottish Government to bring forward their own legislative proposals. I understand that they intend to do this shortly.
I turn to another of the very uncomfortable situations raised by the Horizon scandal, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, who spoke so powerfully about the racism experienced by victims of the Horizon scandal. I agree that this issue is very important. The Sir Wyn Williams inquiry has touched on this already in its oral evidence sessions. The Government are keen to hear anything that the inquiry concludes on this matter, including any recommendations for the future.
On the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in relation to Capture, the precursor computer system to Horizon, at this point we have not found sufficient evidence to conclude that Capture led to people being wrongly convicted. Capture was very different from Horizon: it was a stand-alone spreadsheet, not an integrated accounting system. There were bugs in it, but they were admitted to by the Post Office. It was not an interactive system that could be manipulated by a third-party source, as was the case with Horizon. It helped postmasters balance their accounts, rather than operating as a black box, reporting accounts across the network to Post Office headquarters. Given the limited information that we currently have about Capture and resulting convictions, there is not yet any evidence that any miscarriages of justice took place. It is therefore the Government’s position not to seek to overturn these convictions or to consider Capture cases within the Horizon system inquiry.
However, I would like to reassure the noble Baroness that we are looking into what can be done on Capture. As soon as the Government found out about issues with the Capture system, we asked the Post Office to investigate. We are in the process of appointing an independent forensic investigator to look into the Capture software and how the Post Office addressed concerns about it. Once the investigator has reported, we will return to the House to set out our plans, but we do not consider that this should hold up the more important matter before us, which is overturning the Horizon convictions.
On the post-legislative process, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for his very useful contribution and his two points about creating a website for those who have been exonerated by this Bill. He has indicated that we do not have full contact details for all our claimants in this case. For reasons of confidentiality, it would not be right to create a public web page that would list the names of those exonerated. However, all those that are in scope will be written to on Royal Assent, and those that we have been able to identify in scope but have not been contacted can get in touch with the Government to have their cases looked into. We will ensure that GOV.UK is utilised to promote access to exoneration and financial redress. All guidance on the exoneration process and the financial redress scheme will be on GOV.UK.
I am grateful for the cross-party support shown towards this legislation and the valuable support of the Opposition Front Benches, represented by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
In closing, the Government recognise the profound impacts that the Horizon scandal had on those who were falsely accused. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, refer to individual cases, and we all know of examples in our local area where lives have been ruined, and each one is a very sad story on its own. Therefore, we legislate with that at the forefront of our minds, and the objective of this Bill is to exonerate those who were so unjustly convicted of crimes that they did not commit and provide fair redress as swiftly as possible. I beg to move.
Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill
Thursday 23rd May 2024
(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 73-I Marshalled list for Committee - (23 May 2024)
13:13 - Division on Amendment 2 - Ayes: 76 / Noes: 111 - Amendment 2 disagreed.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, I shall speak to Amendments 2, 4, and 6, and to the question that Clause 3 stands part. I shall briefly touch on Amendment 1, which intended to include in the convictions to be overturned by this Bill those convictions that were secured by the Department for Work and Pensions. Although I have concerns about those convictions—I thank in particular a former sub-postmaster, Chris Head, for his tireless work on the subject—I do not think that those concerns have yet reached the extraordinary threshold required to ask your Lordships, as a legislature, to overturn convictions made by the courts.
However, I take a different view about those cases that have been before the Court of Appeal. We shall, I hope, decide today in Parliament to overturn the convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters. We need to try to be fair. as between sub-postmasters. in choosing those whose convictions we overturn. The 13 cases which have been before the Court of Appeal in one way or another are not outstandingly wicked, compared with the hundreds of other sub-postmasters whose convictions will be overturned. Those 13 will not necessarily have the recourse of going back to the Court of Appeal because there may be no new evidence in their individual cases—new evidence which other sub-postmasters whose convictions are being overturned by this Bill are not required to provide. That is not fair, and I believe we should agree to Amendments 2, 4 and 6, and we should take out Clause 3.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I have Amendment 14 in this group, but just before I get to that, from these Benches, I support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, just said. Had we had a proper, usual style of Committee we would have debated this for much longer and perhaps even taken things to a vote, but we recognise that times are different.
I have tabled Amendment 14 because I had a bit of a debate with the Minister about the previous software, Capture. I am very grateful to him for the private meeting that we had, where we discussed my concerns in some more detail. I hope he will be able to give some more reassurance.
Because there is now an inquiry or an investigation into the Capture process, it obviously cannot be included within the Bill. However, should that inquiry discover that the same sort of faults happened, and the Post Office used the same sort of criminal investigation procedure, could the Minister please explain, hypothetically, what would happen to Capture? Would it require a similar Bill to remedy the position of those postmasters, should they be found to have been incorrectly charged and then convicted? This is important because although there are differences between Capture and Horizon the more that is revealed, the more there are some striking similarities, both in Fujitsu’s denial of glitches and bugs and in the way the Post Office investigation team prosecuted cases.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I remain extremely unhappy about this Bill and the way in which it has arisen, but I recognise the overwhelming importance of, at long last, doing justice to sub-postmasters. I assume that the evidence given to the Court of Appeal would have been similar to the evidence given to the original court. In those circumstances, it seems that the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, is absolutely right and they should not be treated differently.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, I am obviously dealing with this in wash-up. The priority is to ensure that we get this Bill through. The arguments have been very well rehearsed across your Lordships’ House and in the other place about Horizon, the Post Office, Fujitsu and the outcomes of that. At Second Reading, I was struck by the contributions from all sides of your Lordships’ House and the language that was used about making sure that we do, and are seen to do, the right thing. The Labour Front Bench has submitted no amendments at this stage for that simple reason. We looked at purpose, but we think the issues around the Bill are clear enough that it deals just with this set of circumstances, which is obviously one of the big issues from across the judiciary.
On the relationship with the Government and the department on the Bill, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Offord, and the team for those discussions. If we can get to a situation, following the Minister’s response and conversations with the Minister down the other end, where these amendments go through and are accepted by the Government, the Bill will be in a better place and all of us will have played our part in delivering that. We support where we are at just now. We intend this to go through, to be dealt with in the other place tomorrow and then to be legislated for. I look forward to the Minister’s response so that we get the warm words and assurances that the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, has worked so hard to achieve.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I briefly intervene to thank the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, who has done really sterling work on this, together with my noble friend. I very much agree with his optimism that this matter can be adjusted. I think all of us realise that 13 is an unlucky number and 13 people were going to suffer a degree of injustice. This is an important matter. It is a very good example of what we were talking about earlier: how this House can work consensually to deliver the right result. I look forward to what my noble friend the Minister has to say.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I will follow on and, I hope, echo that spirit of consensus. One of the spin-offs from the decision to call the election is, of course, that this Bill will make the statute book quicker than it would have in the event that it had gone through a normal process. This is a good thing. However, it will have lost some of that scrutiny. The amendments set out some of the abiding issues that I hope the Minister will address from the Dispatch Box, bearing in mind that we will not have the legislative routes to do that.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, raised the DWP in his Amendment 1, which may or may not be an issue, but the core issue that he, along with the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, raised is the 13 appellants. If the Government stay firm in not accepting Amendments 2, 4 and 6, we really have to hear from the Minister at the Dispatch Box what they are going to do instead.
When my noble friend Lady Brinton and I met the Minister and his team—I thank them for that—it was clear to me that the Minister understands the injustice that is built into this. I understand that there is a wrestling about how much judges are offended in this, but the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made it clear that the point has been made already in the substance of the Bill. The 13 are merely an extension of the same issue and have to be included in the same way, because they were the people who had the best case to defend and bravely went to law to do it, and now they are in danger of being hung out to dry. I know that is not what the Minister wants and I believe that a way must be found.
My noble friend Lady Brinton made the point that it is not for this Bill to legislate on this. However, it is for the Minister to say that, in the event that Capture proves also to have lured people into situations where they have been unjustly prosecuted, the Government of the day will act promptly and properly to make sure that they are not dragged through the same mess as those trapped by Horizon.
The noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, raised three issues in his amendments; unfortunately, he is not here to speak to them. They are all important issues for the future. I suggest that they are not substantive to this Bill, but they are issues that I hope, whichever party is in government, will be looked at going forward. The inviolability of computer evidence has clearly been compromised. The ability of organisations to make their own prosecutions has raised concern and a thorough review is needed. There is also the role of corporate governance within the Post Office to be considered. I know the noble Lord has also made comments on this on a number of occasions. Clearly, there is something wrong. Whoever is running the Government needs to understand that Post Office governance has been broken.
I would just like to say a word to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Offord. He came to this relatively late and picked up the issues very quickly. He has humanely and swiftly dealt with them, and he should be praised, along with the Bill team and all of those working on it. With the inclusion of the 13, I hope we can put this thing to bed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
My Lords, I will be moving the amendments tabled in my name. I will also discuss the other amendments tabled ahead of Committee.
Amendments 7 and 8 in my name are about condition E. They are technical amendments concerning condition E in Clause 2(6) to ensure that it is clear how the condition should operate. Condition E requires that, to be in scope of the Bill, at the time of the alleged offence, a relevant version of the Horizon software was being used in the branch where the individual was carrying out Post Office business. Currently, this condition does not have the same provision for overlapping dates, which we have in condition A relating to the offences falling within the Horizon period.
The provision in condition A ensures that convictions meet the condition if the date of an offence overlaps with the specified dates, even if it does not fall entirely within it. The absence of an overlapping dates provision for condition E means that it could be possible for a Horizon case conviction to meet condition A but not condition E, even though both are intended to relate to a relationship between the use of Horizon and the date of offending in the same way. This makes condition A less effective so, to remove this inconsistency of approach and ensure that the criteria are clear and operate as intended, we seek to amend condition E to include an overlapping date provision similar to the one included in condition A.
This approach allows us to include within the quashing the possible circumstance where, following the installation of Horizon, an alleged shortfall was identified and the Pose Office concluded that this shortfall must be as a result of theft or some other offending over a period leading up to this installation, leading to a charge offence date overlapping with the period of installation.
Turning to DWP cases, I will now address Amendment 1 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. I thank them for their careful consideration of this issue. It is the Government’s view, however, that the cases the DWP prosecuted are of a very different character from the cases in the scope of this Bill. Therefore, the Government’s position on this matter is unchanged. These cases were investigated and prosecuted between 2001 and 2006 by DWP investigators using different processes from those used by the Post Office. They are of a fundamentally different character.
Lord Beith (LD)
I am grateful for the help the Minister gave the Constitution Committee when we looked at this matter, although we have obviously been unable to report because of the timescale. Does he believe that the Criminal Cases Review Commission can, within its criteria, take account of important new evidence—namely, the failure to disclose what was known about the Horizon system, which is a significant new element of evidence? Previous experience of the CCRC suggests that it is cautious about admitting something as new evidence, which is one of the primary criteria for allowing appeals to go back to the Court of Appeal.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that. My understanding is that, in this case, which is unprecedented, the CCRC will be able to review new evidence in relation to Horizon.
Amendment 15, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is on consequential provision. The Government are satisfied that the current provisions are sufficient to ensure that the Bill can be amended and modified to give full effect to the intentions of the Act. I hope the noble and learned Lord will be happy not to move the amendment on that basis.
Amendment 16, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is on territorial extent. This proposed new clause would require the Government to conduct a review on the application of the Bill to Scotland. The arguments for the Bill’s extension to Scotland have already been explored at length in the other place, where MPs voted against Scotland’s inclusion. Therefore, the Government do not believe that a further review is necessary. I was pleased to see that the Scottish Government introduced their own legislation in the Scottish Parliament to quash the convictions of Scottish postmasters last month. We will continue to support them in that approach to ensure that Scottish postmasters receive the justice they deserve. I hope the progress of the Scottish Bill will satisfy the noble and learned Lord and that he will be happy not to move his amendment.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
Will my noble friend forgive me? I am still thinking about what he said about the Court of Appeal cases. It seems he has changed his mind in the last hour and I wonder what has propelled him to do that.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank my noble friend. We have been clear in our discussions with him that there are two sides to this argument and great sympathy is expressed for the group in the Court of Appeal cases. At this stage in proceedings, however, the Government are retaining the position as outlined from the Dispatch Box.
Amendment 13, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, would require the appropriate authority to notify bodies other than the convicting court that a conviction has been quashed. The effect of this amendment would be potentially onerous. It is not clear what would constitute an appropriate body or how the appropriate authority would decide which bodies ought to be notified. The reason the Bill currently requires that the convicting court be notified is to reflect what would happen when the Court of Appeal quashes a conviction. This amendment would create a difference between the two processes and it is unclear what purpose it would achieve. Therefore, I hope the noble and learned Lord will be happy not to move this amendment.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I may have misunderstood but, when I spoke earlier, I understood that there had been agreement between the various parties, as my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot indicated. My noble friend said that there are “two sides to this”, but I understood that that was part of the agreement and the understanding. This is very important for 13 people.
Lord Fox (LD)
May I suggest that we have a 10-minute break to discuss this, please?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, I suggest that consideration on this amendment be adjourned for 10 minutes while we seek clarification.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for the confusion in proceedings this afternoon. I would like to deal with the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot in relation to Court of Appeal cases. Proceedings are progressing here at great speed and I am grateful to noble Lords for their patience. I express my deep personal sympathy with my noble friend on this issue. However, I confirm that, on Court of Appeal cases, the collective government position has not changed. I understand that my noble friend may therefore wish to test the opinion of the Committee on this issue.
I move now to Amendment 13 on post-Assent implementation, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. This amendment would require the appropriate authority to notify bodies other than the convicting court that a conviction had been quashed. The effect of this amendment would be potentially onerous. It is not clear what would constitute an appropriate body or how the appropriate authority would decide which bodies ought to be notified. The reason that the Bill currently requires that the convicting court be notified is to reflect what happens when the Court of Appeal quashes a conviction. This amendment would create a difference between the two purposes and it is unclear what purpose it would achieve. I therefore hope the noble and learned Lord will not press his amendment.
I turn now to Amendment 17, in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, which would require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report on the power to bring private prosecutions. Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry is examining all the failings that led to the Post Office convictions and it is important that we do not pre-empt the findings of that inquiry by publishing a separate review on this single issue. The Government have already committed to reviewing the Justice Select Committee’s 2020 report on the role of private prosecutions, and are in the process of doing so. The Government believe that this is out of the Bill’s scope and could detract from resourcing the implementation of the Bill. I therefore ask my noble friend to consider not pressing his amendment.
I turn to Amendment 18 on computer evidence, also in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes. I fully understand the intention behind this amendment, which is to highlight the role that computer evidence played in the prosecution of postmasters. I agree that we need to look closely at the wider question of how computer evidence is used in court proceedings. The failings of the Horizon accounting system are now well known. However, as was made clear in the Court of Appeal, and as continues to emerge from the ongoing statutory inquiry, faulty computer evidence was not the sole cause of this miscarriage of justice. Rather, the prosecutions relied on assertions that the Horizon IT system was accurate and reliable, which the Post Office knew to be wrong. This was supported by expert evidence that the Post Office knew to be misleading.
Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry is examining all the failings that led to the Post Office convictions and it is important that we do not pre-empt the findings of that inquiry by publishing a separate review on this single issue. The use of computer evidence is much broader than purely Horizon-style accounting software. Indeed, computer evidence is now widespread in most prosecutions, with serious fraud offences typically involving millions of such documents. The Government recognise that a law in this area must be reviewed, but we need to tread carefully, given the significant implications that any change in the law could have for the criminal justice system.
I turn to Amendment 14, on Capture. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her continuing interest in this. We maintain the position that Capture should remain outside the scope of this Bill. We have not found sufficient evidence to date to conclude that Capture led to people being wrongly convicted. Given the limited information that we currently have about Capture and resulting convictions, there is not yet evidence that any miscarriages of justice took place. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are looking into what can be done on Capture. As soon as the Government found out about issues with the Capture system, we asked the Post Office to investigate. We are in the process of appointing an independent forensic investigator to look into the Capture software and how the Post Office addressed concerns about it.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
I am sorry, but I am slightly concerned with the proposal that the Post Office could investigate. Will the Government consider providing someone slightly more independent, given some of the issues that have arisen recently?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My understanding is that, obviously, the first port of call will be the Post Office, as it administers these matters. However, I can confirm that we are in the process of appointing an independent forensic investigator to look into the Capture software and how the Post Office addressed concerns about it—that will be an independent review. I am happy to reassure the noble Baroness that, once the investigator has reported, the Government will seek to return to this House to set out our plans.
Lord Watts (Lab)
On the issue of credibility, the people who have been affected by the scandal will want the Post Office to have no connection whatever with any investigation. Does the Minister think it would be a good idea to ignore the fact that the Post Office needs to be involved and do this completely independently, to give credibility to the findings that are put forward?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that. That is exactly the intention of the independent investigator.
I turn to the amendment on Post Office governance. Amendment 19 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and I thank him again for his engagement on the Bill. Post Office governance is a priority for the Government. However, it is not the subject of this Bill, which has a clear scope to quash the wrongful convictions of the postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal. Therefore, we do not see the Bill as the place to address governance issues. Furthermore, we do not support a review of the kind suggested by this amendment, due to other work that is progressing. Phases 5 and 6 of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry are looking at past governance issues and could make recommendations for specific changes that the Government will consider carefully and respond to in due course.
Nigel Railton has been appointed as interim chair of the Post Office, and will be invited to give Ministers his views on the future direction of the Post Office, which could include proposals for change that the Government will consider. We of course keep governance models under review, but we do not support another review of governance issues while the activities I have outlined are under way. I hope the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.
In conclusion, I thank the Committee for its attention to the Bill. I commend to the Committee the government amendments in my name.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, if Amendment 2 is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 3.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
My Lords, if Amendment 4 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 5.
Lord Offord of Garvel
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my other amendment to this Clause.
(b) where the offence was alleged to have been committed at any time during a period as mentioned in subsection (2)(b), the Horizon system was being used for the purposes of the post office business for the whole or part of that period.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that, where a person was charged with an offence allegedly committed over a period of time as mentioned in Clause 2(2)(b), it is not necessary for the Horizon system to have been used for the purposes of the post office business in question for the whole of that period: for example, where the period in question straddles the date of the replacement of the Horizon system.
Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill
Thursday 23rd May 2024
(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 73-I Marshalled list for Committee - (23 May 2024)
Lord Sikka
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister and his team for meeting me yesterday to discuss some of the issues relating to Amendment 1, which seeks to amend Clause 1 and quash convictions of postmasters secured by the Department for Work and Pensions. I will not hold up this Bill by pressing the amendment but would like to put some matters on the public record for consideration by the next Government.
Based upon some evidence and testimonies of individuals and, in the case of those who have passed away since convictions, information given to me by their families, I believe there is a strong case for an independent review of all the DWP convictions of postmasters. These convictions took place at a time when the government department and public bodies were insisting that their evidence was sound. The Minister has already said that the DWP cases were not influenced by Horizon. But my view is that, for any fraud to be discovered or prosecuted, there has to be some baseline which states the normal state of affairs. Was that normal state of affairs as per the data generated by the Horizon system?
After 20 years, the affected individuals and their families no longer have court transcripts or the bundles of evidence. Courts themselves do not have copies of the transcripts or the bundles of evidence. Lawyers acting for the parties do not have copies of the transcripts or the bundles of evidence. That makes it very difficult to know whether those prosecutions were fair or whether, in the heat of the moment and the prevailing climate that postmasters were guilty, certain kinds of assumptions were made. I am hoping that the DWP and the Ministry of Justice have copies of each of the cases and all the transcripts, and that they have reviewed or will review each case thoroughly. Without reviewing each case, it is hard to know whether any of the convictions were safe.
Some anecdotal evidence in family and professional letters suggests that convictions may not be safe. For example, there is a letter from the law firm Williamson & Soden, dated 18 April 2004, to a client, now deceased, whom I shall call Mr X out of respect for his family, who do not want him named. This letter says:
“I write to confirm the outcome of your trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court. As you are aware, having heard all the evidence, the Jury found you not guilty to all seventeen counts against you and you were finally discharged. You will be pleased to know that you cannot be re-charged for these offences and you are no longer subject to bail”.
Of course, it is not unusual for the courts to absolve individuals, but my point is that the case shows that the DWP’s construction of this case and evidence was obviously flawed. How many other cases were based on flawed evidence? That is the issue here.
In that case, the same person, now deceased, wrote a letter saying that
“completely unfounded allegations were brought against me by the DWP with scant regard for the evidence or facts available, and I find it incredible that the Senior Investigating Officer in this matter”—
I will call her TC as, again, I do not want to give the person’s name, although I mentioned it to the Minister—
“was willing to admit, in open court, that she has been neglectful in her duty in securing evidence, which could have possibly proved my innocence months ago”.
These allegations were made against a senior DWP investigating officer.
I have given the identity of this person to the Minister, but he said that DWP cannot find anyone with that name in its records, which inevitably raises further questions about how DWP can claim that its prosecutions were sound. Does this mean its files are deficient and it has not got the data? If Ms TC’s evidence was faulty in one case, how many other cases was she involved in? These are the kinds of questions I have. I urge the next Government to mount an independent investigation of DWP prosecutions of postmasters.
Finally, I thank the Minister for his courtesy, integrity and professionalism throughout this debate and on other occasions when we have crossed cocktail sticks across this Floor.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, we would not be considering an amendment like this on Report but for the foreshortening that the general election has imposed. But it is valuable that the point has been brought forward. A little earlier, the Minister gave us a pretty blood-curdling description of some of the offences that might have been covered or have secured convictions as a result of DWP prosecutions.
However, that should not frighten us off looking carefully at the point that bothers me: a person mixing up money, who is in a state of desperation because he or she is told that they owe £10,000 because of the Horizon system and who then commits an offence involving the DWP’s money and is prosecuted by the DWP. The Minister may be able to give me some assurance that this combination of offences, or this mixed offence, can be satisfactorily dealt with within the present terms of the legislation. He may have checked a number of cases already to see whether there are any examples where somebody has been driven to commit a relatively minor offence, prosecuted by DWP, because of the position they were in in relation to Horizon. Can he give us any helpful clarifying points on that?
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, this Bill has always been about justice and getting it quickly for the victims of the Post Office/Fujitsu scandal. We can all agree—and have all agreed—that they have waited far too long.
I am glad that, in wash-up today, we are pushing this Bill through before the end of this Parliament, so that the individuals affected by it will receive the responses that they deserve from across Parliament as a whole—the Government, Opposition and other Benches. I am conscious that there are other important Bills that need to be debated today and tomorrow, so I will keep my comments brief. I know that there is a consensus across the House to see the overwhelming bulk, if not all, of the convictions overturned as soon as possible.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, first, I apologise for arriving slightly late; I beg the leave of the House to speak.
It is an honour to follow the noble Lord, who has been very much engaged in this issue for so long, as have other noble Lords here. I echo the point about the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot—it is a shame that he is not here.
To address the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, I think I heard the Minister say in Committee that, in the event that such cases did start to involve the Horizon issue, these issues would be reviewed and brought to your Lordships’ House. I hope that my understanding is correct. There is a deeper issue around finding the people who have been affected by this, because there are quite a number who are essentially missing.
That brings me to a wider point: how this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will be administered by the department. The efficient, humane and understanding administration of the Act will be central to the feeling people have of finally getting justice. I am sure that the intentions will be good, but speed is really important. Although process is important, that process needs to be expedited in order to make sure that those people find some peace at last.
I want to pick up the point we discussed in Committee, about which the Minister and others had conversations afterwards, on the subject of the 13 cases. As was touched on by the noble Lord, these people have been burned by the legal system not once but twice. To persuade them to once again put their hand in the fire may be difficult. If the only way they can get justice is to go back one more time through the legal system, it is vital that all friction is removed from it by the department and the legal system—a representative of which I am pleased to see here. If we cannot use the Act to finally exonerate these 13 then we have to rely on a humane, rapid and frictionless legal system. Anything that the Minister can say about how that can be done would be the start of being reassuring. These people will have to have a metaphorical arm put over their shoulder to persuade them once more to enter the legal fray. It is important that they get that and as much help as possible.
In closing, I echo the point that this is a really important Bill. It has taken a very long time to get to where we are. The Ministers, His Majesty’s Opposition and, I hope, these Benches have done our best to make sure that it moves as fast as possible. Once it becomes an Act, I hope very quickly, the ball passes to the administration of it. Let us get that done as quickly as we have been able to get this Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for the attention he has brought to convictions prosecuted by the Department for Work and Pensions. Amendment 1 would result in convictions for relevant offences in England and Wales that were prosecuted by the DWP being quashed at Royal Assent. I reiterate the Government’s view, which I set out in a certain amount of detail in Committee earlier in this Chamber, that the cases prosecuted by the DWP were of a very different nature from those prosecuted by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Government’s view is therefore that it is right that they remain excluded from the scope of the Bill and that these convictions should not be quashed through this legislation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beith, for his question; I can assure him that DWP prosecutions had nothing to do with the Horizon system. There are no instances that we are aware of where someone committed an offence prosecuted by the DWP because they were accused of Horizon shortfalls. With that, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, as the Bill reaches its final stages, I have a few thank yous from my side. I put on record my thanks to my colleague and friend, the noble Lord, Lord Leong, for his support during the Bill’s passage, to our team in the Labour Lords office—Milton Brown and Cameron Iverson—for their support, to James Fisher in my office and to the Bill team. I also thank the Liberal Democrat Benches and the Government for the collective nature of our work on this.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
My Lords, I will make a statement on the legislative consent process in relation to this Bill. In the other place, the Government tabled amendments to bring Northern Ireland within the scope of the Bill and sought legislative consent from the Northern Ireland Executive to do so. Unfortunately, due to the existing expedited timescales, we have not yet been able to secure a legislative consent Motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly for this piece of legislation.
However, my department has received a letter today from the Northern Ireland Justice Minister confirming the Executive’s support for the Bill as it relates to Northern Ireland. The Justice Minister wrote: “In the absence of the Assembly’s legislative consent, it is important to note that on 9 May 2024 the Executive Committee agreed an extension of the provisions of the Bill to Northern Ireland. The Justice Committee has also considered this matter at two meetings and has informally indicated its support for Northern Ireland’s inclusion on both occasions. Finally, as noted in previous correspondence, to date there has been unequivocal support for Northern Ireland’s inclusion within the Bill from all executive parties”. I am grateful for the work of counterparts in the Northern Ireland Executive and their officials for their constructive engagement on this Bill.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I have some brief thank yous. I will not delay your Lordships long. I thank the Front Bench of His Majesty’s Opposition for working collaboratively, the Minister, the Whips and, in particular, the Bill team, who have had to scramble on this. The noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, needs a special mention in all this. I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for her work on this issue and Sarah Pughe in our Whips’ office, who has been behind much of our work. We have worked well on this Bill together. Let us now pass it.
Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill
Thursday 23rd May 2024
(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act 2024 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 73-I Marshalled list for Committee - (23 May 2024)
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I confirm that nothing in the Lords amendments engages Commons financial privilege.
Clause 2
Meaning of “relevant offence”
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.
Mr Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment 2.
Kevin Hollinrake
This is an historic day. It has been a great privilege to be the Minister for the Bill, and I thank our officials for moving with lightning speed to get it to this point, only five months from when the process commenced. I also thank Members in all parts of both Houses for their co-operation and their collegiate approach to the Bill, including the Opposition Front Benchers, who have provided great support, which we greatly appreciate. I thank the Justice Secretary, my Department’s Secretary of State and the Prime Minister—the Bill would not have been possible without their support.
This is an historic day because, as a result of the Bill, convictions will be overturned on Royal Assent. With His Majesty’s agreement, that means they will be overturned tomorrow.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Along with the contaminated blood scandal, the Horizon scandal remains a terrible stain on our nation’s recent past. It is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history, and over the course of the debates on the Bill we have heard the testimonies of victims, and the lies and obfuscations of those who were responsible, expressed by Members across the House. That has rightly made Members of both Houses and the public deeply frustrated and angry at the injustice that sub-postmasters and their families have faced.
It is right that the Government have introduced legislation to exonerate those who have suffered for so long, and the time provided for the Bill today allows us to ensure that it is concluded. We must not lose sight of the task at hand during this wash-up, and we must ensure that the hundreds of innocent people who were wrongfully convicted get the justice that they deserve, and the compensation and exoneration that they desperately need. The Opposition have supported the Bill, and we support the independent inquiry and wish to see it continue its work. Even this week, with the testimony of Paula Vennells, shocking new information has been revealed, and we will continue to push for justice for the victims.
At previous stages, the Minister provided assurances that he would ensure that cases from the Capture IT system are looked at, because this Bill does not cover the wider extent of the scandal, and that the company responsible for Horizon, Fujitsu, and its executives will honour the commitment that they made to provide compensation, rather than leaving it to taxpayers to do so. I hope he can update us on any progress he has made since giving that undertaking in the House. This Parliament will soon dissolve, but Ministers of the Crown carry on for a few more weeks. I hope the Minister will make every effort to ensure as much progress as possible is made, so that the families receive the redress they desperately need.
In the other House, the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson highlighted Lord Arbuthnot’s desire to see those convicted by the Court of Appeal included in the Bill before us. At the time of speaking, the Government opposed that. We are sympathetic, but we nevertheless remain opposed to Parliament becoming, in effect,
“the appeal court for the Court of Appeal”.
We would, however, support appropriate proposals to give the 13 people not covered by the Bill the opportunity to seek redress in the courts. I hope the Minister is able to look at what might be done to work with Lord Arbuthnot to find a satisfactory solution for those 13 cases.
In conclusion, I am grateful to colleagues from across both Houses for the work they have done, particularly the Members of Parliament who worked so tirelessly to ensure that the plight of sub-postmasters and their families was raised. Their work highlighted that in this and other scandals, such as the contaminated blood scandal, it is the constituency connection and our relationship with the people we represent that is often the most powerful insight into seeing injustices early on, and seeing broader patterns that expose major failures in our system, be that in the contaminated blood scandal or the Horizon scandal. The message is very clear: whoever and whichever party is in power, Ministers, civil servants and those in positions of power must listen very closely and not dismiss the concerns of Members of Parliament who raise those cases, which can expose a bigger pattern of injustice, or the citizens we represent.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Before I call Marion Fellows, I note that earlier today Kevan Jones announced that he will not be standing at the next election. On behalf of all the victims, I thank you, Kevan, for the doughty fight that you have put up on behalf of them all. You have been absolutely amazing in what you have done. You are sitting next to Jackie Doyle-Price—I knew it was only a matter of time before she crossed the Floor. More amazing things have happened recently, so it doesn’t surprise me.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I had decided that I would not speak, but I feel compelled to do so. I am very pleased that the Bill has passed. I am very pleased that all the victims who have been exonerated by the Bill will be exonerated tomorrow, except those in Scotland, which I am still unhappy about. I think it is a huge pity and shame that that did not happen, and that the three sub-postmasters who came down here especially the last time the Bill was before the House did not even get a chance to hear what was being said because of the ways of this House, where nothing is ever fixed. We can bring people 400 miles, but they have to go back the same day and they cannot stay.
I want to pay tribute to someone I can safely say is my friend, the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), for all the counsel and help he has given me. I already gave a little tribute earlier today, but I could not possibly not say thank you to Lord Arbuthnot and to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who so stoutly defended Scotland the last time the Bill was before the House. This place is sovereign, but not when it comes to Scotland, so independence had better come soon.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call our right hon. Friend, Kevan Jones.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Thank you for your kind words, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think this will be the last time that I speak in this Chamber, and I cannot think of a more fitting debate in which to do so, because it is the culmination of many years of fighting. I played a small part in getting justice for the sub-postmasters; much of it was down to Alan Bates and the families who went through this complete nightmare. Hopefully, they will get justice and truth when the inquiry reports next year.
This Bill was always going to be important because of the individuals involved. Unless you actually sat with many of these victims, they would not have come forward to clear the stain on their reputations or to gain access to compensation. It has been a long fight, and my partner in crime was Lord Arbuthnot. Someone asked me how we had got together on this. If people look back, they will see that we both served on the Defence Committee—he was the Chair at the time. He has been a very effective advocate and I pay huge tribute to him.
There have been many Members from all parts of the House—some are no longer here—who made a contribution over the years, and I think that their support needs to be recognised as well. Turning to the Ministers involved, I would like to mention the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who showed such tenacity in his determination to get justice. He was followed very ably by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). I have called him a poacher turned gamekeeper, but he is a very effective one. He has driven this case forward, not in a belligerent way, but with patience and determination to ensure that people who have been wronged get justice. That is something that we should all think about.
People can turn round and say, “No, you are wrong, the system cannot be questioned.” And there are times when you can feel like you are ploughing a lonely furrow. But if you know in your gut that something is wrong, it is important to just keep going. This was one of those cases. But it has certainly been championed by the Minister, who has been an excellent advocate on behalf of all these people. It has not been easy. I accept that some of the decisions that he had to make were not easy and were not always welcomed by everyone, but he tried his best and we have this Bill today because of him.
I have one final thing to say, and this is unfinished business. The Minister knows what I am going to say now and it is about Capture, the pre-Horizon scheme, which I have been investigating. Hopefully, we will get justice for those individuals as well, and, again, the Minister is determined to get to the bottom of that by appointing an independent investigator to look at the cases that have been referred to him. I shall be looking from afar with interest, but I know that whoever picks up his brief or takes on this case will not be able to put it down unless they get that justice.
In politics, people often ask whether you can actually achieve anything. There is a lot of cynicism these days. I say to anybody who is aspiring to be a Member of this place that they can change things, they can make a difference, but they have to be persistent. Most of the time, people across the other side of this House may be political opponents, but they are not our enemies. We do the best in this place when we work together, and, in this case, cross-party working has achieved final justice for these people.
Kevin Hollinrake
With the leave of the House, I have a few final comments. The shadow Minister asked about the Capture software that was used prior to the Horizon software. The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has pushed strongly on these matters, and we are having an independent investigation into them, which we anticipate will report later this year. I am sure that he will take a keen interest in that, as will those on the Opposition Front-Bench team. It is important that we get redress as soon as possible. The Bill opens the door to rapid redress for hundreds of victims of this scandal. We believe that we can get redress paid from July onwards, when the new scheme will be put in place. On the Court of Appeal, we are very interested to ensure that those people also get a fair hearing, and a rapid rehearing of their cases, and can be exonerated wherever possible.
Rushanara Ali
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to thank a number of colleagues who are stepping down. As has been mentioned, the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), is stepping down. I thank him for taking the Bill and this work to the point that he did. I also thank the Deputy Chief Whip for the Labour party, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I discovered today that she is stepping down, and I am pretty gutted.
Most crucially, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). As others have pointed out, his work has been profound, along with that of Lord Arbuthnot and all the sub-postmasters involved in this important, powerful campaign. Again, I am very saddened that he has decided to leave the House, but I know that he will be a tireless campaigner to ensure that, whoever is in power after the general election, the work continues and victims get the justice and exoneration that they need. We are all incredibly grateful for the work that he has done with others across the House, and with the wider campaign. As has been pointed out, it is campaigns such as this that highlight the power of our democracy, and show it, and our political representatives, at their best. Kevan is the epitome of that, along with other colleagues who have exposed other scandals, working with their constituents. I thank all my colleagues across the House, and the Minister for the work that he has done on this important issue.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
This is such an emotional time for us, today and tomorrow. Holly, I did not know. We wish you well for the future. We will miss you greatly, but do not be a stranger, please. The same to you, Kevan.
Lords amendment 1 agreed to.
Lords amendment 2 agreed to.
Royal Assent
Friday 24th May 2024
(6 months, 4 weeks ago)
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