Post Office Redress and Funding

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Clive Efford

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas]

If the hon. Gentleman writes to me with the details of that case, I will happily look at where it is at. The Horizon shortfall scheme has been run by the Post Office for some time. Initially, it was closed and then it was reopened under pressure. All those who came forward in the initial tranche of claims have had them assessed and offers have been made. The majority of the compensation that was offered has been paid out. When the scheme was reopened, there was a substantial increase in the numbers of people applying for redress. Indeed, we are still seeing people coming forward now and we would expect, as a result of all the letters that we have asked the Post Office to send out to sub-postmasters who might have a claim, that there will be further substantial claims under the Horizon shortfall scheme. With the Post Office, we are looking at what more we can do to speed up the assessment of those claims.

The fixed sum payment that we announced in September of some £75,000, which sub-postmasters can choose to accept in full and final settlement of their claim, has been welcomed and accepted by a significant number of sub-postmasters. That is helping to speed up redress under the Horizon shortfall scheme. I accept that there is more to do, and we are looking at what else we can do in that regard.

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement and the fact that he is putting more resources and manpower into processing people’s claims. But I wonder where the complexity of these claims is coming from. Are we asking for too much information from people in the first place? I watched the evidence of Sir Alan Bates at the Business and Trade Committee, and I have read some of the cases in the news. In one case, a person with breast cancer had their compensation reduced and I thought, hang on a minute, this may be going too far and is a bit churlish. Just how much information is being gone through in order to process these cases? I wonder if we may want to go back and look at that. I have spoken to the Minister about this, and I know that he wants to speed the process up as much as possible. Is it possible that we could streamline the process?

[Gareth Thomas]

I have looked at this issue, which came up at the Select Committee. We write out to ask for further information in order to be able to justify the payment of more compensation, not to query the information that has been provided by sub-postmasters to date. To try to provide reassurance on that point, we are making that explicit in the letters that we send out to sub-postmasters. We are anxious to reduce the stress and concern and, essentially, the trauma that people have gone through already. We do not want that process to be repeated, if at all possible, during the compensation process. Asking for more information is designed to enable us to offer more and fairer compensation to the individuals concerned.

Future of the Post Office

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Clive Efford

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)]

I am a veteran of virtually every debate, urgent question and statement on this issue over more years than I dare to mention. I welcome the statement by my hon. Friend the Minister, but it is disappointing to read some of the comments about the process for sub-postmasters to apply for compensation. We hear about people who have been repeatedly asked for the same information time and again. They are being asked to provide information that is 20 years old and to respond to questions they cannot answer because the Post Office has confiscated the documents and not returned them. The solicitor who represents those postmasters says that the system is designed to wear them down. I gently ask the Minister, what we can do to improve this process for the postmasters?

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes a strong and compelling case. The criticisms that he has just articulated about the compensation process are ones I have heard directly from victims of the Horizon scandal and their legal representatives. We are looking at a series of further things that we can do to improve the compensation process. We have moved more staff in the group litigation order compensation process to help speed up redress for sub-postmasters in that scheme, whose remaining cases are more complex. Perfectly reasonably, people want to see them compensated as quickly as possible. I am optimistic that for claims that come into the GLO scheme before Christmas, we will see significant redress delivered to victims of the Horizon scandal by March.