Post Office Horizon Compensation Scheme

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on securing this important and timely debate. I echo his credit to the postmasters for their decades-long search for justice. My noble friend Lady Ludford highlighted the role of Nick Willis, whose reporting over decades exposed what was happening to many members of the public. I want to pay tribute to the many solicitors and barristers who worked with the victims over the years as well, long before they were listened to. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, who highlighted the delays and attempts to minimise compensation despite agreed routes to compensation. This is a key issue, and he is right that these are further scandals within scandals.

I congratulate the two new Peers on their maiden speeches. The noble Baroness, Lady Elliott of Whitburn Bay, spoke about the lack of progress of the compensation scheme. She is right and even though there has been some progress, as we have heard in this excellent debate, there are certainly problems and particularly snail-like reviews of complex cases. The noble Lord, Lord Barber of Ainsdale, brings his wealth of experience in the trade union movement to this appalling miscarriage of justice. He highlighted how employers could mistreat staff with absolute impunity. He has been, and I am sure will continue to be, an exceptional advocate for workers and the trade union movement. I also agree with him about skills. As a former director of UFI, I worked closely with Unionlearn. I believe it was transformational, and I hope that work can be resurrected. From these Benches, we welcome both new Peers and look forward to their contributions to your Lordships’ House.

Just over a year ago, the country was reeling from the exceptional ITV drama “Mr Bates vs The Post Office”, which brought to the country’s attention the appalling miscarriages of justices faced by many postmasters. Early on, we focused on the Post Office. This debate rightly takes us to some of the other issues, specifically Fujitsu. The noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Beamish, whose constituents were affected, have led the campaign for many years in Parliament on these issues and continue to lead the debate. The speeches were once again clear on progress and the remaining issues facing postmasters.

In February 2024, the Treasury supplementary estimates outlined the money set aside for the GLO scheme and, separately, the value of provisions relating to the Post Office for some of the other schemes and some of the Post Office’s legal costs. I looked at the Treasury supplementary estimates for the Budget last year, and the numbers had slightly changed. Without wanting to question the Minister about exact sums, it would be useful to know six months on whether those estimates still hold or if, in light of compensation agreements, we are going to have to expect further rightful compensation.

The noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Sikka, raised the essential issue of Ernst & Young’s audit practices. I hope the inquiry report will lay bare these failures and its practices in giving clean bills of health, because it just did not query items. The noble Lord, Lord Monks, spoke of the Enron scandal and the role of auditors, and about the cultures of organisations when things go so badly wrong. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, spoke about the auditors’ shortcomings and of cash accounting. What are the Government doing to ensure that organisations, whether private or publicly funded, understand the role of auditors, make sure they have people able to assist them and, in particular, that the audit profession reviews what it does?

We had a very helpful briefing from Protect, the whistleblowing charity, which raised an interesting point in relation to the Post Office contractors—the sub-postmasters, who blew the whistle on the Horizon scandal. They would not have enjoyed legal whistleblower protections because they are self-employed. Will the Government use their powers to extend legal whistleblower protections to self-employed contractors?

The small number of postmasters who were not cleared under the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act was brought up by a number of speakers. In May last year, the Law Society gave parliamentarians a briefing when we were considering that Bill, setting out the reasons why some were not included—judicial reasoning that they would have been convicted of something else. I remain particularly concerned about this. If the evidence for the other items was also coming from the Post Office and Fujitsu, why is their evidence in those cases suddenly valid? I hope that this will be reviewed, particularly by the criminal justice system and the judiciary. As the Law Society commented, it is difficult for Parliament to insist on things with the justice system.

Can the Minister say how the appeal cases of those few who were excluded from the general cancellation of the wrongful convictions is proceeding and whether there is any doubt about the substantial evidence provided by the Post Office and Fujitsu on those convictions?

There has been some mention, as there has been elsewhere in Parliament over the last year, of the Capture scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Beamish, said it is now clear that there are certain problems. I am grateful that he highlighted the issues in the first place. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, outlined some of the technical problems with Capture. Who among us does not remember dodgy phone lines when attempting to transmit data in the 1980s and 1990s? I certainly do.

It is really important to see whether there are miscarriages of justice in this scheme. Since this time last year, when we have discussed the Post Office Horizon scheme I have kept raising what will happen when it is realised that the Capture scheme victims also deserve to have their convictions overturned. I asked then whether it would be possible to amend by regulation the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act rather than having to start with new legislation, because it would be dreadful to have to start all over again. Can the Minister update the House on that and on what the Government plan to do about the Capture scheme? We saw the report published last autumn; it is really important that we get speedy responses on this issue.

Sitting behind all of this is Fujitsu. The noble Lord, Lord Beamish, is right to highlight its consistent lying for so many years that it was not possible to adjust Horizon remotely, which supported the prosecution of postmasters. Only through seeing Fujitsu staff on the witness stand at the inquiry having to admit that they regularly changed data did we realise the scale of what had been happening. I echo his concerns about Fujitsu’s silence. It is appalling that it has not yet announced how much it will contribute to the compensation. Above all, after they realised what was happening, why did the last Government—and the new one—give it and continue to consider it for new contracts?

My noble friend Lady Ludford highlighted the omissions from the Horizon shortfall scheme and how different standards are now being used by some of the assessors, which is very concerning. I have heard about this too, so can the Minister say whether these are being addressed? The example from the noble Lord, Lord Polak, of the struggles that Rita is facing demonstrated that this is not a technical issue; it is not done and dusted, and it is still affecting postmasters’ lives today.

My noble friend also made the point that the Post Office should not be responsible for negotiating with the victims. This also applies to other inquiries, where government department staff often operate the compensation scheme. The Infected Blood Compensation Authority is at least at arm’s length from government and therefore separate from the institutions responsible. Will the Government have a review to consider whether this might be a model for the future? The one thing we do not want to see is a repeat of the long years of mistrust and problems with the compensation—the speed at which it is being awarded, and the detail of what is being awarded.