Post Office: Horizon Compensation Arrangements

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work she does on behalf of Tracy Felstead and others. Tracy’s case is one that I often hold up as someone who was so young that she has spent more than half her life under this absolute shadow, explaining to her children now what happened all those years ago. On civil servants, I set up an independent inquiry to get those answers, and it is right that it remains independent. I do not want anybody to feel that they can get away with this, or that they do not have to answer those questions. I will ensure, as I am sure will my hon. Friend, that Sir Wyn calls up exactly who he needs to call as the facts are uncovered, so that everybody answers without fear or favour.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) on securing this urgent question, and I join him in thanking Lord Arbuthnot for his tenacious efforts over the years. I congratulate the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee on its report. It is clear that the only reason this scandal was unearthed was that 555 postmasters, including my constituent Tom Brown, took the Post Office to court. They were forced to settle because the Government and the Post Office used a tsunami of public money to defend the indefensible. The Minister and I have spoken. He knows that these people need compensation. The report recommends an independent comprehensive scheme, outside of the Post Office, and that is what we need now. I congratulate the Minister on what he has done in this area, but if the problem is the Treasury, can he not call that out now, so that we can put the fire on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure we get the funding that is needed properly to compensate these individuals? The Minister knows as well as I do that this scandal will not go away.

[Paul Scully]

I reiterate my thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for the work he has done for Tom Brown and all the postmasters. There is no single blockage in the Treasury. We are trying to work through the holistic view about where the money is coming from and how that is justified to taxpayers—as I said at the beginning, however, when taxpayers understand the scale and depth of this, they will clearly want to ensure that those postmasters get their review. We are also trying to unpick that legal settlement, which was, as he rightly describes, pushed through the Post Office under considerable pressure, considerable cost and considerable might. That will take a few days, but I want it to take days, not months—certainly not years—and I am working as quickly as I can to get that resolution. I am really hoping that I will be able to come back to the Dispatch Box and have good news for him in the next few days.