Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.