Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[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.

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Condition E in clause 2(6) provides that the Horizon system must have been in use at the post office concerned. Clause 8 defines the Horizon system as any version other than the current one, HNG-A. It follows that, as a pilot of an earlier version of Horizon, Pathway is covered, hence we are clear that the Bill already caters for Pathway and changes to the drafting are not necessary. I hope the right hon. Gentleman is therefore content not to press amendment 70.

[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.

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[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.

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[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.