Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom]

2: Clause 1, page 1, line 10, leave out paragraph (c)

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. My understanding is that, in this case, which is unprecedented, the CCRC will be able to review new evidence in relation to Horizon.

Amendment 15, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is on consequential provision. The Government are satisfied that the current provisions are sufficient to ensure that the Bill can be amended and modified to give full effect to the intentions of the Act. I hope the noble and learned Lord will be happy not to move the amendment on that basis.

Amendment 16, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is on territorial extent. This proposed new clause would require the Government to conduct a review on the application of the Bill to Scotland. The arguments for the Bill’s extension to Scotland have already been explored at length in the other place, where MPs voted against Scotland’s inclusion. Therefore, the Government do not believe that a further review is necessary. I was pleased to see that the Scottish Government introduced their own legislation in the Scottish Parliament to quash the convictions of Scottish postmasters last month. We will continue to support them in that approach to ensure that Scottish postmasters receive the justice they deserve. I hope the progress of the Scottish Bill will satisfy the noble and learned Lord and that he will be happy not to move his amendment.

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

Will my noble friend forgive me? I am still thinking about what he said about the Court of Appeal cases. It seems he has changed his mind in the last hour and I wonder what has propelled him to do that.