Alan Bates and Others v Post Office Limited
Lord Fox Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble and learned Baroness. This is exactly the issue we need to get to the bottom of. It goes back over a large number of years. We will be going back through files, ministerial appointments and meeting notes to find out exactly what notice was given and when. A ridiculous level of faith was given to the Horizon computer. Fujitsu has acknowledged culpability in this matter. Once the Williams report establishes the facts, we will be able to take necessary action to hold people accountable.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, to date, all the talk has been around what happened to sub-postmasters, but we should remember that Horizon was being used in the Crown offices, the branches that Post Office Ltd managed, so it would have seen the shortcomings of this system through its own management. It is not just a question of having to read the papers, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said; it was happening to its own businesses, and it was covering it up. Is this not further evidence that things should be done now, rather than waiting for some far judgment?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. The Horizon system has been upgraded—and upgraded again since 2017—and we now have a reasonable audit that it is now working satisfactorily. It will now be further replaced by a cloud system that will run alongside the current system, so I think there is now a feeling that there is efficacy in that system. What the noble Lord refers to is why there was an unshakeable belief in the computer system that went on for so long. We need to understand exactly how that happened, what the role of Fujitsu was in that, whether this was corporate malfeasance or the role of one or two individual bad actors, et cetera. We need to get to the bottom of that, and that is what the Williams inquiry will do.
Regulatory Approval for New Products and Services
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Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her points. This is clearly a topic of much broader debate, and I am very grateful to have been given the regulatory reform agenda in my portfolio. We have three core priorities. The first is to minimise the regulatory burden and to future-proof regulations, which means looking at the current regulatory stock and seeing what we can do to make it more effective. The second is to work out the mechanisms that will allows us to better understand and establish how we can measure the cost of regulation on business when it comes through Chambers such as this. The third is to work with regulators to get them to promote the duty of growth and to look at regulation as a service, rather than simply a block, as we do sometimes.
I will answer two other quick points on the health side. My noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy wrote an excellent report on getting clinical trials to operate more effectively; the Government have accepted most of those points. On innovation, my noble friend Lord Camrose pointed out to me, on the way in, the extraordinary number of initiatives he has taken with the various Bills we are bringing through and the co-ordinating function of the DRCF, which means that we are one of the most innovative regulatory environments in the world for AI and new tech.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing up the issue of innovation, which I know the Minister also considers to be very important. Last week, I spoke with representatives of the highly innovative UK tech industry. Worryingly, they reported that tech start-ups that should be starting up in the UK are being very effectively lured to France. I think the Minister will agree with me that this needs to be nipped in the bud, so can he undertake to dispatch his department to find out what France is doing and how it is getting some success here and to make sure that the UK is doing at least as well if not better?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments and am always stung by comparisons with our near and dear neighbour. But I can reassure him that our global investment summit raised over twice as much in terms of commitments as the one in Versailles. There are three trillion-dollar tech economies in the world: one is the United States, one is China and one is the UK.
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
We should celebrate the fact that we are raising more money for tech in this country than Germany, France, Spain and Italy combined in many sectors—but we are not complacent. I totally accept the need to ensure that organisations such as UKRI are given the firepower that we have given it to ensure that we can provide funding for these businesses. I personally take this very seriously and would be delighted to have further conversations with the noble Lord on how we can ensure that every tech company in the world sees this country as their international HQ.
Horizon: Compensation and Convictions
Lord Fox Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, in preparing for today, I had a look back over previous Statements, debates and Written and Oral Questions that we have debated in your Lordships’ House. What shocked me the most was just how repetitive it all is: the same interventions, the same problems, the same people and the same lack of solutions. I have raised questions and spoken in debates on this issue many times since 2019, and I am just a newcomer. We have all known about the scandal for years, thanks to some great campaigning by individual sub-postmasters and by parliamentarians across the political divide and across both Houses. They include the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and Kevan Jones MP in the other place, to name just two.
The scandal is an absolute disgrace on so many levels: financially, judicially and on a human level. Most worryingly, it is a governmental oversight failure as well. We all know the details: thousands of sub-postmasters sacked or prosecuted in the space of 16 years and wrongfully labelled as thieves and fraudsters by the Post Office, Fujitsu and our judicial system. Their lives were made hell, and all because of an IT glitch in the system. What makes this so shameful are the lengths to which Post Office Ltd went to cover it up. The fact that it spent £32 million denying these claims and bullying those wrongfully accused into false guilty pleas is bad enough. But what makes this story even worse is that we got the national moral outrage not when the cases went to the highest court in the land and were won, three years ago, but only when ITV produced a drama on the scandal. As my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti asked earlier, where has the moral outrage of the state been in the last two decades?
Many postmasters and postmistresses have so far received only a fraction of their costs and expenses. Can the Minister guarantee that compensation payments will immediately follow any exonerations under the terms of the scheme as they stand today, and can he indicate any sort of timescale for this? We have waited so long. I know that he, like his predecessors, appreciates that victims cannot continue to wait for years for payments. Sixty sub-postmasters have died since the scandal, four of them taking their own lives. The final compensation is critical, but so too is overturning the convictions. Justice must be served for those workers and their families, which is why Labour has called for all sub-postmasters to be exonerated in full. As my colleague Jonathan Reynolds MP said in the Commons,
“I extend our support for any actions that may be required to overturn these convictions as quickly as possible”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/1/24; col. 84.]
One of the lessons we have learned—the Minister touched on this—is the trauma and lack of trust that the whole process has caused for the victims. We want to ensure that no victim has to re-enter litigation and relive the traumas that they have experienced. We also welcome the announced review into private prosecutions, because the public want assurances that nothing like this can ever be allowed to happen again. One of the most alarming and shameful aspects of the whole scandal is the failure of our courts and our judicial system. In all the cases of the sub-postmasters being wrongfully found guilty, the courts believed the computer. There were originally 640 legal cases, although I think there are more now. How did that not ring alarm bells at the time? I hope the inquiry will also look into the legal processes that exacerbated the problem.
In conclusion, I will press the Government on a few of the key matters. First, can the Minister confirm the timescale on the overturning of those wrongly convicted so that they can carry on with their lives? Secondly, this is not just a Post Office issue; Fujitsu as the provider has its share of culpability. What plans do the Government have to hold Fujitsu to account for its actions? Thirdly, how much money has the Post Office spent on prosecuting the sub-postmasters and then on defending itself against them over the last 20 years? Fourthly, have the Government made any assessment of the impact of the 2014 law changes on the ability of people wrongly convicted and imprisoned to claim compensation in a scandal? Fifthly, are there any plans to seek redress from the chief executive, the Post Office board and the senior management at the time who oversaw this scandal? Finally, why did it take a TV drama for the Government to act so decisively when parliamentarians in this place and others have been raising this scandal for more than a decade?
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, as we have heard, it has taken a television drama to set light to what has been smouldering for a very long time. I suppose that all those associated with that drama should be congratulated, because they have managed to do what we failed to do: to ignite public indignation to such an extent that the Government had to move. In that respect, they deserve a great deal of congratulations. Of course, the script has been played out here and, thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, at the start, and others, we are very familiar with it.
I have a few questions about where we are now. First, we welcome the news that Scotland Yard is looking into potential offences in relation to the Post Office overall, but can the Minister confirm that this will be able to progress in a speedy way in a twin-track approach alongside the public inquiry? It is very important that both these things can happen as fast as possible. We do not want one to impede the other, so can the Minister assure us that this twin-track approach will be pursued?
Turning to compensation, in the case of individual assessment, can the Minister please enlighten your Lordships’ House on the role of retired judge Gary Hickinbottom’s panel? This was announced only on Monday and, according to the Minister then, this panel is apparently going to assess the pecuniary losses for those with overturned convictions if there is a disagreement. Is this now obsolete, or will it still be operating? If it is still operating, why does it deal with only pecuniary issues when the Secretary of State has on a number of occasions said that this harm goes way beyond simply those? How is this to be incorporated into the two announcements spread over three days?
In the Commons, the Father of the House, Peter Bottomley, said that
“the titanic error was a belief in technology”—[Official Report, Commons, 8/10/24; col 86.].
It was that belief, coupled with zero faith in the decency of the sub-postmasters, that set the problem going. In that, the role of Fujitsu was central, and it is clear that the failure of its technology was at the heart of the issue. It remains to be seen how it perpetuated the myth of its technology, and that is what the public inquiry will address; but however you look at it, it continues to benefit from UK consumers’ and taxpayers’ money. It is still operating Horizon for POL, and benefiting as a result to the tune of tens of millions of pounds annually. That is not all: further government contracts have been issued. Is this right? Is it appropriate that this should continue?
Speaking yesterday, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Mel Stride, is quoted as having stressed that not only the taxpayer will be on the hook for this compensation. The spirit of that was reiterated by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Kevin Hollinrake, today. So, does this now signal that the Government are going after Fujitsu for money to support the compensation of these people?
It is a terrible saga, but it has demonstrated characteristics of other sagas we have seen. For example, the process of compensating the victims of the Windrush scandal has been achingly slow. The contaminated blood scandal has dragged on and on. Another terrible example is the way the Hillsborough tragedy victims have been denied justice. There is a pattern of denial, cover-up, and then redress being delivered at a very slow pace. Does the Minister agree that there appear to be institutional problems that we ought to try to address?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Nicol and Lord Fox, for their contributions and detailed questions. It is worth reminding ourselves of the timeline of this sorry story. The Horizon accounting system was introduced in 1999, and between 1999 and 2013—a 14-year period—the 700 postmaster direct prosecutions in England were brought. In 2017, the group litigation order was got together and in 2019 the High Court judge discovered that the case was flawed and the judgment was made, whereupon 75% of the settlement money had to go to fund the litigation.
In 2020, the then Prime Minister committed to holding an inquiry into the Horizon scandal, so that starts the clock on government action. The Criminal Cases Review Commission then began its work and referred the initial 39 cases to the Court of Appeal. In 2020, the Horizon shortfall scheme was set up, designed on the understanding that compensation was going to have to be made. So at that moment, there was an understanding that there was a major problem.
In 2021, the High Court quashed the 39 convictions in a landmark judgment, and the Government announced funding for Post Office Ltd to pay the compensation. On 19 September, my predecessor, my noble friend Lord Minto, made the announcement in this House on the £600,000 upfront offer, so that pre-dates the TV series.
My DBT colleague in the other place, Minister Hollinrake, was vocal on this issue when he was on the Back Benches, and now, as a Minister, he has committed entirely to getting justice. He has come up with the £600,000 scheme, which is saying to people, “You don’t need to go through any more trauma or see any more lawyers. Here is an interim payment of £163,000, and you can get up to £600,000 without seeing another lawyer, get your conviction overturned and be done and dusted”. Yes, it is clear that the TV series brought this to light and to public attention. However, it has been acknowledged in government that this is a big problem that needs to be sorted. I commend my colleague, Minister Hollinrake, for what he has done so far.
In the process going forward, time is of the essence. The timeline will involve a triple track. First, there is overturning the convictions, which will require primary legislation. This breaks a lot of precedents in terms of legal procedure; ordinarily, convictions are given by a court and should then be overturned by a court on an individual basis. It is possible that in respect of some individuals, an otherwise safe conviction in another matter will be overturned. We do not have the time to dwell on that. We talked about the Blackstone principle: it is better that we get justice for the many as fast as we can. That process will be immediate.
The second part of that process is accountability. We need to know what happened; we need the facts and to get to the bottom of this. We cannot repeat the mistake the Post Office made, which was to go half-cocked, without evidence, against people who cannot then defend themselves. We need to go through a process to understand who is accountable; people are innocent until proven guilty. We will take this on with the Williams inquiry, which is determined to report through the rest of this year and will get to the bottom of the accountability issue. The third track, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, mentioned, is the police making their own inquiries. It is fair to say that, post the TV series, this is uppermost in all minds, and the timeline will be expedited considerably.
Going back to accountability and culpability, there are a number of players in this: the Post Office management, Fujitsu and, obviously, the role of various Ministers. That is why the Williams inquiry must do its work and get to the absolute bottom of this, in order to understand what we are dealing with. In the case of Fujitsu, are we dealing with rogue employees, corporate malfeasance, or was the Post Office instructing its client to do what it wanted it to do? We do not know the answers to these questions, so we must get to the bottom of that. That process will run through and when we have that, we can then discuss accountability. As the noble Lord has said, Fujitsu has been involved in many government contracts across many departments for the last 20 years and continues to do its business according to the contracts it has with the Government. I am sure that there is heightened awareness now around some of its performance. But this process will continue until such time as we find evidence to suggest that it has been outside of its contract, and if so, the consequences will follow.
We have to separate out the payment of compensation, speeding this process up and making it as painless as possible. Today, my colleague in the other place, Minister Hollinrake, announced that the 2,100 postmasters who were not convicted and who were not part of the GLO 555 have already had a compensation scheme, which is running though; 80% of those claims have now been met, and we see that process continuing. Retired judge Sir Gary Hickinbottom is there to deal with those sub-postmasters who feel despondent at being back in dialogue with this thing called Post Office Limited: “Why is the compensation being done by Post Office Limited?” Therefore, to give assurances around that relationship, with Post Office Limited paying compensation through the HSS, the presence of Sir Gary Hickinbottom ensures some level of independence and an appeal process, which will come through.
So I believe that everything is being done now to expedite the process on the compensation side. In terms of accountability—as was asked by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox—we will let the Williams inquiry move through. As far as the timeline is concerned, this has to happen with all speed and, again, we are very grateful that we have my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot and Kevan Jones MP, who are so vital to this and have the trust of the sub-postmasters. That advisory committee will be clear in making sure that everything is done as fast as possible.
Horizon: Compensation and Convictions
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Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the right reverend Prelate. The consequences of this are absolutely wide-ranging and beyond just the immediate financial matters. Our Government are working hard to make the process full, fair and quick. Interim payments have already been made to GLO members, and those with lower-term convictions are having their full claims processed. The emphasis now is on speed and supporting the victims with the immediate issue of compensation. The second issue is getting to the bottom of this awful matter; that is where the Williams inquiry will do its detailed work, and we will get detailed answers to these questions.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, we welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement that primary legislation will be brought forward, but we still would like to have some more details. Given the speed with which this has been moving, I understand that it is difficult to be specific, but it would help if the Minister could tell your Lordships’ House whether it is the intention that the pardons will come en bloc or still have to be pursued individually. Will these people actually receive pardons? They have been publicly humiliated for years, so the process of exonerating them has to be more than just the stroke of a pen. It is very important that, more than just receiving a pardon, they are seen to be pardoned.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that very important question. I can clarify that this is not a case of being pardoned; these convictions are being overturned. The primary legislation will take account of all of these convictions en bloc; it would take too long to go through each individual case and it would be too stressful. Of the 983 convictions, only 20% of the victims have actually come forward—so many people are just scunnered with the situation that they are in. Therefore, this will be a blanket overturn of convictions.
Code of Practice on Reasonable Steps to be taken by a Trade Union (Minimum Service Levels)
Lord Fox Excerpts(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)
I was so fascinated by the noble Baroness’s speech.
Lord Fox (LD)
I apologise to the Deputy Speaker for stepping up too soon.
I thank the Minister for describing the first on the menu of the four statutory instruments we will be tasting today. I think that he was yet the ascend the rickety stairs of ministerial responsibility when the noble Lord, Lord Collins, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—when she was among us—and I were debating the substantive nature of this Bill, so we welcome him to this tiny corner of legislation. It is a shame that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, has now left as I thought he was overseeing the realisation of his creature; of course, it was the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, with whom we debated. Actually, the Minister did not miss a lot of the substance of the legislation because, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, pointed out, there was not a great deal of substance in the enabling Bill. It is these statutory instruments that we will see today that begin to put the soft tissue on to the skeleton of that Bill.
There are four instruments, but we are looking in particular at the one aimed at tying the unions up in procedural knots. It is laying legal traps by which they can be caught out, with potentially existential sanctions. None of us enjoys the effects of public sector strikes—the Minister described those effects today. Swathes of society are inconvenienced and, in the case of the health service, it is much worse than an inconvenience. It behoves any Government to create the conditions for ending strikes as soon as possible, but this legislation does not create those conditions. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, it creates heat and friction and makes settlement less likely. For the benefit of this Minister, I will repeat what I said while we were debating the Bill: disputes end only when the relevant parties sit down, talk and negotiate. It is for Governments to act to maximise the opportunity of those negotiations, rather than turn one party on the other.
I will concentrate on the operational faults of this statutory instrument, because therein lie the traps for unions. It really begs the question of how reasonable the code’s “reasonable steps” are? Unions must ensure that their members comply with the employer’s work notices. A work notice, as we have heard, is essentially a list of names associated to tasks for that particular service. Its purpose is to seek to deliver an agreed level of service—a handed-down level of service from government to the employer to the union. To comply, the union must first filter out the non-union members from that list and then take “reasonable steps” to ensure that its members do not honour that strike—a strike that the union itself has legitimately and legally called. To do this, the unions are likely to have extremely tight deadlines—deliberately unreasonable deadlines, I suggest.
Employers have only to provide a work notice seven days before a strike commences. That notice—the list—can be further amended, leaving only three days for the union to contact its members. That is not three working days, just three days, so it could include Saturday and Sunday. We have seen the pro forma; this communication must encourage them to pass through the union’s picket lines and go to work. I remind your Lordships, including those of us who were at the debate, that picket lines and picketing were never mentioned in the original discussion.
To go back to the procedural difficulties, some disputes are small and involve few union members. But the nature of the industries covered by the Act means that disputes are likely to be countrywide and involve tens of thousands of employees, maybe more, so I ask the Minister: is it a reasonable step to ask a union to track down and contact 20,000 people in three days, perhaps over a weekend? How does he expect that contact to be made? Will it be by email? He may be surprised to know that not everybody has email, and further surprised to find out that not everybody hands over their email address to their union. Will it be put on a postcard? I suggest that the postal service may not get it there in time.
There are serious impediments to the taking of these reasonable steps—or possibly unreasonable steps—but let us say that the union succeeds in crossing these hurdles and navigating its way through the minefield set out in this statutory instrument. Can the Minister confirm that the union is therefore indemnified from prosecution if some or all of its members still choose to ignore its advice and honour the strike? What is the legal position of the union? The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about how we prove that the steps were reasonable still remains but, in negotiating those reasonable steps, can the Minister confirm that the union is then indemnified?
One would expect the TUC to be critical of this legislation, as it is, but what about ACAS, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, which is the expert at putting people around a table and trying to solve these problems? It too expressed reservations and asked why—I have relayed this to the Minister—if the reasonable steps for unions are set out in detail, similar steps are not set out for employers. Why are similar steps not also set out for the Secretary of State in his or her dealings on these issues? For example, what is to stop the employers overstating the number of persons reasonably necessary to provide the minimum service level mandated by the Secretary of State? Those are not my questions but ACAS’s. At the moment, as far as I can see, there is nothing to stop them. How would the union challenge that, given the time available and the current state of the code?
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill
Lord Fox ExcerptsTuesday 5th December 2023
(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to be working on this Bill—a Bill that we on these Benches broadly welcome. I hope we will be able to work constructively to improve it as it moves through your Lordships’ House. It is about time, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, noted. The Furman report was set up five or six years ago; we have been impatient for competition law in the digital space to be reformed and for the Digital Markets Unit to be empowered—so, at last.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, also noted, this is a big Bill, and it acts in a number of different ways. I fear that many of the things I say will be similar to what was said by the noble Lord; in order to maintain novelty, I will probably say them in a different order.
I will start with consumer issues. Clearly, these issues have excited correspondence from a lot of people in the outside world. We should note and thank them for the work that they have done in sending through a load of briefings. There are some important issues here, and areas that should be tightened up and improved. These include: tackling online scams, dealing with product safety issues and strengthening trading standards; taking action on primary and secondary ticketing; impeding price drip and mid-contract price rises; addressing the pernicious nature of fake reviews, as we heard from the Minister; devising a sensible way of redesigning automatic subscription rollover—there is a danger of us taking a number of other areas down with the law we have, so we must be careful of unintended consequences of that move—and delivering a range of other consumer rights, such as the possibility of collective action for consumer claims. I am sure there will be plenty of grist to this mill as we work through that part of the Bill.
Moving on from consumers, the second big challenge is the need to tip the balance of power toward content providers—and here I should declare that I have several creators in my family. As a basic principle, all content creators should be properly paid for the work they do. UK law requires payment for the commercial use of another’s copyrighted work, yet commercial use is currently being made of content by global platforms without any permission being obtained or payment being made. The dominant platforms profit from the efforts of content creators, from songwriters and artists to publishers and broadcasters, and they do not get rewarded.
The News Media Association estimates that over 50% of searches are news-related, but Google keeps the value of repeated visits and the value of online footfall that is generated. As such, copyright law looks foolish, as the system is being gamed. Smaller players must try to sue their distributors to enforce their rights, but they cannot risk such a move or indeed afford to take them on. Indeed, the evidence suggests that it is difficult even for Governments to challenge these platforms. After almighty tussles, the Australian and Canadian Governments have won concessions. It remains to be fully appreciated how those will pan out but, as well as highlighting the global dominance of the big two, those fights highlighted an essential difference between Meta and Google when it comes to news content, which is of great interest.
The Bill must make it clear that platforms need to pay properly and fairly, on benchmarked terms and with reference to value for end users. Additional clarification is needed on how a final offer mechanism would work in practice, and we will be seeking that, but really a bigger change is needed. That change should require those using and distributing content to obtain the owners’ permission before they use it, and we will be pushing for that.
I remind noble Lords that that we are discussing the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill—so competition is a central part of it and we have already heard elements of that. But, in the market that we are looking at, competition is weak—if not frail, to perhaps overstate it. In our view, the pro-competition interventions are one of the Bill’s most powerful features and a big step forward. We must use the Bill process to ensure that the powers are sufficient and Ministers must articulate government support for the ambition that the CMA and its DMU will need in order to start to take on the competition challenge, because that will require a big shift in emphasis from the CMA.
At present the CMA deals with a lot of mergers— 50 to 70 detailed investigations a year—while enforcement typically attracts fewer than 10 cases per annum and there are hundreds of complaints for it to deal with. When looking at competition matters, including acquisitions and mergers, the world’s competition authorities have focused on efficiency and short-term consumer benefit, but, as we have been reminded recently by the Court of Appeal when it found against Apple, the overriding objective of the CMA, as set out in the 2013 Act, is to promote competition in the interests of consumers.
“Promoting competition” does not mean just assessing the efficiency of a monopolist; in digital markets, this approach has delivered global oligopoly. So, while Web 1.0 was an open access—albeit read-only—platform, Web 2.0 has been captured, intermediated and monetised by a very small number of profitable concerns. That has been achieved largely through acquisitions that have been waved through by the authorities. Looking at the publicly disclosed acquisitions between 2008 and 2018, we see that Google has acquired 168 companies, Facebook 71 and Amazon 60. Now, thanks to this and other things, they control the core software in web browsers and device operating systems, and through that control they determine what we see, what we find, what we search on the web and how we pay for stuff.
The Bill is, in many respects, seeking to close the gaping doors of empty stables that this approach has delivered and, to do so, short-term consumer welfare cannot be the sole—or sometimes even the primary—consideration. Promoting competition means taking into account market structure and the ability of players to innovate. When looking at mergers, regard has to be taken of the effect of allowing large companies to buy innovative ones so that they can assimilate or retire their ideas and technology. In that context, we very much welcome the CMA’s approach to the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard and Ofcom’s decision to refer the hyperscalers in cloud services for an investigation by the CMA. This demonstrates that the CMA is up for a global challenge in this strategic way and that it can play a leadership role.
Looking forward, as well as mitigating the competitive and consumer issues thrown up by the centralised Web 2.0, the Bill should empower the CMA to help usher in a genuinely decentralised Web 3.0. As Professor Furman reminded us in evidence in Committee in the Commons, intervention interoperability is a vital remedy—and we say that interfering with interoperability in all its forms should be policed by the DMU. That means embarking on investigations and actions with the aim of distributing the power and control over Web 3.0, creating a network that spans a large base of independent actors. This speaks to the technology on which the network is based and the standards that are set to deliver that network.
It seems clear that the DMU should be proactive with respect to promoting international standards and aiming to create that interoperability: for a start, by focusing on open access and operational transparency, working for standards that allow unrestricted participation and favouring the technologies and protocols that prevent a single person or group amending or reversing transactions executed and recorded. It would be good to hear from the Minister, when he sums up, on the role that the Government feel the DMU and the CMA should be playing on the standards authorities—the IETF and the W3C. How do we see engaging further and more thoroughly with those standards bodies, because that is where the first fight starts in these technology issues?
So there is a lot resting on this Bill. The architecture of the web is currently threatened by those who would create and preserve their own walled gardens of content that is provided by others, privatise a public resource for their own ends and monopolise all content offered to the public via the internet for their own profit. This is not an abstract need; additional danger is already with us. Big tech is busy wrapping its tentacles around AI, including by co-opting start-ups for investments and partnerships. It is critical that the CMA uses these new powers to keep that technology open before it, too, is intermediated.
To deliver on this, however, there are many issues to be addressed. Your Lordships will no doubt come up with many others; we have already heard a list from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, who will be pleased to know that there are many coincident issues. I will give a short list before I end of the issues that we will be keeping an eye on: ensuring that the Bill no longer gifts to strategic market status players the opportunity to challenge DMU decisions on the basis of lack of evidence, which means looking at the five-year view that is required; securing the role of judicial review and making sure it is not eroded; strengthening the leveraging principle that denies third-party developers revenue; understanding the Government’s position on data and information-sharing; clarifying how the final-offer mechanism would work in practice; probing the proportionality tests brought in via the latest amendments; challenging the changes to the definition of “counter- vailing benefit”, which also came through the amendments; enabling those with content to be paid properly; and allowing smaller businesses a voice and an ability to bring claims and, where possible, be awarded exemplary damages.
This Bill is a weighty tome, but it has a vital role in shaping the architecture and landscape in which the future digital economy will be built. It will help establish how the value of this economy is created and distributed. It will influence how easy or hard it is for challengers and disrupters to enter the market. Our job, therefore, will be to ensure that the CMA and DMU have the powers they need, but, more than that, our job is to articulate the cross-party ambition we have for this direction of travel and to launch the DMU with our overwhelming support to maximise its success.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Viscount Camrose) (Con)
My Lords, I thank all today’s speakers for their eloquent, clear and powerful contributions to what has been a fascinating debate of the very highest quality. In particular, a number of speakers referred back to the Online Safety Act debates and variants of the warm glow. I am delighted to participate in any such approach to the Bill, as is my noble friend Lord Offord. I welcome very much the support shown across the House for this legislation, with the caveats gone into by many speakers. As my noble friend said in his opening speech, this is an important Bill which will drive innovation, grow the economy and deliver better outcomes for consumers. The debate we have engaged in is demonstrative of noble Lords’ desire to ensure that digital markets are competitive and work well, and that consumers are protected from the potential harms posed by anti-competitive and unscrupulous practices.
I will respond to the questions raised, cutting across a number of issues and speakers as I go. First, my noble friend Lady Stowell and the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Clement-Jones, asked, quite rightly, whether we are watering down the Bill. Let me categorically say that that is absolutely not the intention. The amendments at Commons Report brought further clarity, and they will ensure that the DMU’s interventions are proportionate and drive the best possible outcome for consumers. I look forward to discussing this further during the Bill’s passage.
I turn to the appeals standard in the digital markets regime, which was raised by noble Lords across the House, including my noble friends Lord Vaizey, Lord Kamall, Lady Stowell, Lady Harding, Lord Black and Lord Lansley, the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron, Lady Ritchie and Lady Jones. We have considered strong and differing views about appeals from a range of stakeholders. Judicial review remains the appropriate standard for the majority of decisions in the regime, and we have maintained that for appeals of regulatory decisions, with additional clarification on the need for the Digital Markets Unit to act proportionately. Firms would already have been able to challenge decisions to impose interventions on the basis that there were disproportionate interferences with their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. This amendment allows that challenge to happen under usual JR principles. Moving appeals on penalties to full merits brings the regime into line with the Enterprise Act 2002. It will mean that, once a breach has been found, a firm could argue that the imposition of a penalty was not appropriate, the level of it was not suitable, or the date by which it should be paid needs to be changed.
I turn to the countervailing benefits exemption, which was raised by a number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lady Harding, Lord Vaizey, Lord Lansley, Lord Kamall, Lord Black, Lady Stowell, the noble Lords, Lord Bassam, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Fox, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie and Lady Kidron—I see the point about themes. I reassure all noble Lords that this is a further safeguard in the legislation to ensure that consumer benefits which might have been unknown when conduct requirements were first introduced can be recognised. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, asked for an example of how this could work in practice. If an SMS firm bans an application on its platform, it might breach a conduct requirement not to apply discriminatory terms. The firm could claim that the ban was to protect user security and privacy. Thanks to the exemption’s high bar, the DMU would close its investigation only if the SMS firm provided sufficient evidence, such as an independent report from security experts. Firms will not be able to use the exemption to delay enforcement. Assessment of whether the exemption applies will take place during the enforcement investigation, which has a deadline of six months.
The noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Bassam, and my noble friends Lord Vaizey, Lady Harding and Lord Kamall asked about the change to the indispensability wording. The change of the language is to clarify the exemption; it maintains the same high threshold and makes sure that consumers get the best outcomes possible, whether through the benefits provided or through more competitive markets.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, for his detailed analysis of the work of the CMA and his continued support for the legislation. He raised the matter of proper scrutiny of the CMA. I very much agree with him on the importance of this and look forward to continuing that conversation.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friends Lady Stowell and Lord Kamall sought reassurance that requiring the Secretary of State to approve guidance would not cause delays. The Government are committed to ensuring that approval is given in good time, in order for the regime to be in place as soon as possible. Introducing a statutory timeline for this process would limit the Government’s ability to work collaboratively with the CMA.
My noble friend Lord Holmes and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, raised the importance of the independence of the regulator, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, spoke about the risk of regulatory capture. I agree that this is an absolutely vital issue. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and my noble friend Lord Holmes asked about the resourcing and tools of the DMU. I reassure them that the Government have full confidence in the DMU’s resourcing. There are currently around 70 people working in DMU roles, and we expect the DMU to be around 200 people in steady state.
A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Black, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron, Lady Bennett, Lady Jones and Lady Ritchie, raised the importance of support for the press sector, with which I agree. The digital markets regime aims to address the far-reaching power of the biggest tech firms and help rebalance the relationship between those platforms and other businesses, including publishers. This will make an important contribution to the sustainability of the press, which is so important in all aspects of our lives.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, my noble friend Lord Black and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, asked about the final offer mechanism and how this will work. The final offer mechanism is a backstop measure to help resolve sustained breaches of conduct requirements relating exclusively to fair and reasonable payment terms, where other DMU tools are unlikely to resolve the breach in a reasonable timeframe. Unlike the Australian and Canadian models, the final offer mechanism is not a standalone tool to force negotiations. It forms just one part of the DMU’s holistic toolkit for promoting competition in digital markets. The DMU will be able to impose conduct requirements on the firm from day one of its designation, including requirements to ensure fair and reasonable terms. However, we recognise that some stakeholders may be concerned about SMS firms frustrating the process. Here, the CMA can seek to accelerate the stages before the final offer mechanism, making use of urgent deadlines on enforcement orders and significant financial penalties, where appropriate.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett, Lady Jones and Lady Uddin, asked if the regulator will have sufficient power to deal with imbalances in access to data. The answer is yes. These are exactly the kinds of issues that the DMU will be able to address.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, asked how the digital markets regime will address the rise of artificial intelligence. The regime has been designed to be tech-neutral, future-proof and flexible enough to adapt to changing digital markets.
I now turn to questions raised today on the competition part of the Bill. I note the interest from my noble friend Lord Sandhurst in the recent Supreme Court judgment on the status of litigation funding agreements—LFAs—and its potential impact on the ability to bring collective actions on behalf of consumers across the legal system. The Government have urgently addressed the potential implications of the judgment on claims under competition law, and we feel this has provided some much-needed certainty to funders and claimants. I also note the interest from my noble friend and others across the House in extending this to all parts of the civil legal system. While I am advised that this Bill is not the appropriate vehicle to deliver this aim, I can assure noble Lords that the Ministry of Justice is actively considering options for a wider response.
I now turn to the consumer part of the Bill. Several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Black, the noble Lords, Lord Vaux, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Bassam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, posed questions about the approach taken in the Bill on subscription traps. The measures being taken forward are the ones which are necessary and proportionate to ensure that consumers are treated fairly and understand what they are signing up to, while balancing further costs and regulatory burdens on businesses.
A number of noble Lords—I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I do not read out the full list, because there are far too many of them and it might test everyone’s patience—raised concerns about potential unintended consequences for charities in relation to the new subscription rules, in particular their ability to claim gift aid. Donations to charities where nothing is received in return are not subject to the subscription rules. Generally, charities will only be in scope if they provide auto-renewing contracts to consumers for products and services in return for payment. This is consistent with other consumer protection laws. I reassure the House that it is not the Bill’s intention to undermine access to gift aid; we are examining this issue closely and will provide a further update in Committee.
Many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Fox, raised other consumer harms such as drip pricing and fake reviews. The Government have recently consulted on proposals to address these and other practices, and our upcoming consultation response will set out next steps. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, also mentioned misleading green claims. This is indeed an important issue, which we hope is already covered by existing regulations.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and my noble friend Lord Holmes that the right to repair is important. The right-to-repair regulations which came into force on 1 July 2021 address some of the issues she raised. My noble friend Lord Offord, as the responsible Minister, would be happy to meet her to discuss this further.
My noble friend Lord Holmes raised concerns about Henry VIII powers. Where the powers to amend primary legislation would permit major changes to the legislation concerned, they are subject to the draft affirmative procedure.
I hope that in wrapping up I have responded to at least most of the points raised by noble Lords today. I note that there were other issues raised which I have not addressed, such as alternative dispute resolution and secondary ticketing. I look forward to discussing those items and others during the Bill’s passage. Let me once again thank all noble Lords for their contributions and engagement, not just today but in the lead-up to it. My noble friend Lord Offord and I look forward to further and more detailed debates on these matters and many more besides in Committee.
Lord Fox (LD)
Before the Minister sits down, I should say that I mentioned the central role that standards and the setting of future standards have. The Minister need not answer the question now, but could he write to me about the strategy, in a sense, and the involvement that the DMU might have, or should have, in future standards-setting for the technology?
Viscount Camrose (Con)
I apologise to the noble Lord for not addressing that. Absolutely I will write.
Northern Ireland Investment Summit
Lord Fox Excerpts(12 months ago)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for that prompt. The Northern Ireland Investment Summit was itself ultimately funded by an initiative led by our current Prime Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am determined to ensure that we follow up, which is why, this week, we hosted a round table at No. 10 with venture capitalists, to encourage investment in Northern Ireland. We supported Joe Kennedy’s mission and we have many more projects and plans to come. However, I note my noble friend’s recommendation for a further summit. It is something I would certainly celebrate, but we have to ensure that we can pay for it and that it would deliver strong value for money for the taxpayer.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, there appears to be rare harmony between the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the Minister and myself. This was clearly a very successful event. Does the Minister put a strong measure of that success down to the fact that Northern Ireland has a unique opportunity, with access to both the EU and the UK markets? Is the Minister pushing that key selling point?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I must say that I am delighted that my friend the noble Lord, Lord Fox, from the Liberal Democrat Benches is rejoicing and celebrating the benefits of Brexit, because that is exactly what the Windsor Framework delivers. It puts Northern Ireland in a unique place to benefit precisely from the regulatory environments and frameworks that we have in this nation, while at the same accessing the goods and markets in the European Union.
Workers’ Rights
Lord Fox Excerpts(12 months ago)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I rejoice that the electronic ballot results have produced the leader of my own party. I recommend that trade unions look at ways to modernise—not just the way they ballot but the way they look at the economy. Ending the concept of labour flexibility in this country would be devastating, particularly to the sorts of investment I work on daily, including the celebration of over £20 billion of new capital committed to this country two days ago by a number of Korean companies. They are coming here because of our economic growth prospects and the flexibility of our labour markets, among other things. Trade unionists and all my colleagues opposite should remember that.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, the Minister is no stranger to hyperbole, but his description of the CPTPP issues around intellectual property contains several misapprehensions. Could he undertake to read, carefully, the debate in Hansard that accompanied that Bill’s Second Reading? There are serious concerns from the creative industries about the clauses on intellectual property.
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I will read Hansard on that debate. I seem to remember being there myself; I delegated the opening to one of our newest Members. We promised, during that debate, to have a full consultation on how artists’ rights are treated. It is extremely important that we get the balance right. Ultimately, it is about fairness and equity, and we stand four-square behind that, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree is right.
British Steel
Lord Fox Excerpts(1 year ago)
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The Earl of Minto (Con)
My Lords, obviously the loss of any jobs, particularly in a sector as important as steel, is to be deplored. However, there are commercial necessities that we are all fully aware of. The activity that the Government took in Port Talbot shows very clearly the commitment that we have to supporting the transition from historic steel-making to something more modern. As far as the production of virgin steel is concerned, the noble Lord is absolutely right that it will be affected by the closure of the smelting plants, but we will still be able to import limited amounts of iron ore pellets, which can be put towards the other steel that we have already within this country to produce what is required.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Opposition spokesperson back to his Front Bench and thank the Minister for his answer. However, I do not think that he is grasping the point. Steel is vital to the economy, as the Answer said, but it is also vital to our strategic interest. At a time when we are talking about the need for secure supply chains, does the Minister recognise that this weakens the supply chain for our defence, aerospace and automotive industries?
The Earl of Minto (Con)
I completely understand the position of the noble Lord. During this transition period there is bound to be some effect. However, once the new systems are in place, there should be no change.
Post Office Compensation
Lord Fox Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank the noble Earl for attending today to discuss yesterday’s important Statement in the other place concerning compensation for victims of the Post Office’s Horizon IT system failings.
What took place after the installation of Horizon accounting software started in the late 1990s has been referred to as one of the greatest scandals of modern times. The installation of the accounting software led to recorded shortfalls in cash at many branches. The truth is that, instead of questioning whether the software was working accurately, the Post Office instead believed that the shortfalls were caused by postmasters themselves, leading to dismissals, recovery of losses from the individuals concerned and, of course, in some cases criminal prosecutions.
The lives of decent, honest postmasters were ripped apart, with some cases resulting in prison sentences but, for all, a long and difficult wait for years to get justice. The consequences for some of those victims are just too awful to contemplate. The wait for resolution of compensation claims has only added to the intolerable burden so many have had to face.
We can all be grateful for the work done by Ministers and civil servants to make progress on this important matter, and I acknowledge the commitment and dedication of Members in both Houses continuing to work with victims through the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance to sort this mess out.
We agree that there is logic in the proposals for compensation outlined in the Statement and welcome the clarification given in yesterday’s Statement by the Minister, Kevin Hollinrake. He acknowledged that 86 convictions have been overturned and that over £21 million has been paid out in compensation. However, due to the complexity of some claims, especially for personal damages, progress on full and final settlements has been slow. The proposal outlined is to offer a fixed sum of £600,00 for those who received an overturned conviction. Can the noble Earl tell us what specific methodology was used to arrive at this figure? Will he commit to publishing it for the sake of transparency?
I also seek clarification on a few factors. First, how many people does the noble Earl anticipate will take up this offer? What assurances can he give that the compensation being offered to those 86 individuals whose convictions have been overturned will be made up to a sufficient level? What can he say in response to the point that, if people go through the full scheme, the compensation will be much higher? I would be grateful if he addressed what he thinks the balance is between the figure of £600,000 and what others might expect to get. Importantly, what is the estimated timescale for compensation completion for those he considers eligible and not yet fully compensated? Finally, can the noble Earl explain why it has taken so long for evidence from key stakeholders—the Post Office, the Government and Fujitsu—to be presented to the public inquiry?
The Post Office is a national institution, but its reputation has been severely damaged by this scandal. I finally ask: what steps are being taken to ensure that this can never happen again?
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Earl for repeating this Statement. I recognise the good faith that the Under-Secretary of State in the Commons and the noble Earl have in trying to move this forward. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, said, this scandal is deeply shameful—one of the most deeply shameful incidents in public life, certainly in our lifetimes. It has involved lying, cover-up and deceit on an industrial scale and, to date, only the innocent have been punished.
Nevertheless, as I said, this announcement is a sincere attempt to inject some forward movement. As media reports have indicated, and as the noble Baroness set out, since the announcement, some of the victims will be freed from the need for an extensive claims assessment process through this offer. Others, some of the most egregiously harmed by this scandal, will rightly decline in anticipation of more appropriate compensation via a full assessment and, clearly, the Government have recognised this right, which is the right thing to do.
I sense and understand the Government’s frustration that only 86 out of an estimated 600 people who were damned by Horizon evidence have so far come through the process. Perhaps this new announcement will attract some people out, but I ask the Minister: what is plan B and what else are the Government going to do to try to inject further forward motion in this awful scandal? The process is grindingly slow and presents imposing challenges to people who have already been burned by their contact with the courts and the authorities. These are people who have been psychologically harmed by the system and now have to re-enter it to get recompense. Some element of psychological understanding has to go into coaxing these people to cross that line.
In the Commons, my honourable friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton asked a very pertinent question regarding subpostmasters who were dismissed but not prosecuted. In his thoughtful answer, Kevin Hollinrake MP highlighted the complexity and difficulty of processing claims. This is the nub of the problem and why things are grindingly slow. It is complex and difficult, and things are taking so long. Already, people have died and more will die before they find justice. I understand that this announcement is driven by a desire to move things forward, but can the Minister please undertake to carry back to his department your Lordships’ frustration and plea for greater urgency and more energy to make this move forward?
I have a question, which perhaps the Minister can explain now or write to us. Do the victims in this process, which is complex, have to prove themselves innocent, or is the assessment the other way around? It seems to me much harder to prove innocence than to refute guilt. Perhaps one way of moving this forward is to change the bar that people have to clear in the assessment process, and make it clear to them that it has been lowered and made easier. Perhaps we are applying too rigorous a standard for people who were so unrigorously prosecuted in the first place.
The elephants in the room in this inquiry are the roles played by the Post Office and Fujitsu, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, said. Here, I think the Government have been found wanting. The Government moved on the issue of senior employee bonuses, for which they deserve some praise, but, seemingly unchastened by this overall story, the Post Office is still taking an obfuscatory stance with respect to providing evidence to the inquiry and moving things forward, and it continues to be allowed to do so. Secondly, can the Minister confirm that Fujitsu remains commercially untouched by this and continues to bid and win government contracts—and can he tell us why?
This is a welcome announcement, but it is one step and there is a long way to go, so please can the Minister, who I know is working with us in good faith, work with his colleagues to find new ways to speed it up and find resolution and at least some end to this sorry story?
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (The Earl of Minto) (Con)
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their speeches, which were both very powerful and raised some extremely salient points on what I think everybody must agree is one of the most atrocious commercial situations that this country has experienced. Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord are quite right: this is an extremely complicated situation and of course it goes back over a very long time now. Memories are fading and some of the financial data, which is critical to sorting out some of the issues, is not as fresh as it was and, of course, we have the terrible situation of individuals being not only prosecuted but jailed—and unfortunately some have even taken their own life, which is just beyond belief.
This is one of the very worst incidents in commercial history. When it comes to trying to support the victims wherever one possibly can, the Government are increasingly taking steps to not only get an appropriate amount of compensation into their hands but to encourage people to come forward, which seems to be one of the hardest things to do. For one reason or another, people who have been so badly affected by this situation are unwilling to come forward. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, made the extremely interesting point that it could be that proof of innocence is harder than proof of guilt, which of course is completely the wrong way round. I will certainly ask what the Government can do in relation to that, but this is an increasingly difficult situation to get to the bottom of.
Having said that, the offer of £600,000, free of any tax and with legal support if so required, for the individuals involved where their conviction has been overturned is a genuine attempt to make things much simpler and easier for those who find the whole process of going through the established claims procedure too challenging. This is an offer that is not conditional upon anything. My honourable friend Minister Hollinrake said “no ifs, no buts”—it is £600,000 tax free, and of course it is a full and final settlement. The clarity of it is absolutely simple. I hope that will appeal to certain people who may want to bring financial closure where possible. There is no doubt that it will not appeal to everybody. I am sure we have all read in the press this morning a number of stories of people who are talking about numbers which are considerably higher than this. It is right and proper that they should continue to press their case through the compensation channels that they have.
I will address some of the issues raised. I am afraid I cannot give a clear answer to every single one of them; some of them are extremely subjective and probably need a little more thought. I will certainly write where I have not addressed the issue.
The question of personal damages is a tricky one. The Government have already made interim payments of £21 million to 86 postmasters who have had their convictions overturned.
On how the £600,000 figure was reached, I am not absolutely clear. It is a huge step forward from what was available previously, but I will follow that up. From the point of view of the pecuniary amount, it is a significant amount of money. The offer that anybody who has already settled and who got less than £600,000 through the existing channels will be made good up to that figure is an honourable way of going about it. It is extremely important—I quite agree.
As to how many people will take it up, that again is a very difficult question to answer. As I am sure the noble Baroness knows, there are a number of these unfortunate individuals who have already employed lawyers and who are already into the process. I guess they have to be confident that the legal advice they receive will either allow them to pursue what they have started or take this offer. I am not certain that it is the Government’s role to get involved in that; I do not think that is the case. As far as the total amount goes, if everybody were to take it up, obviously that would be £600,000 per claimant, but my suspicion is that it will end up being a bit more than that.
As for the timescale, this offer is to make it simple and fast, for all sorts of reasons. As the noble Baroness said, this has been going on for an unacceptably long time. The attempt to make it transparent and simple is a genuine attempt to bring closure for as many people as possible.
The point about the Post Office, the Government and Fujitsu is very well made, and I will address that later, if I may.
Finally, on the point about it never, ever happening again, I do not think anybody would put their hand on their heart and say that something like this could never happen again, but one of the collateral benefits of a situation such as this is that it raises awareness. One has to go back a long time, but, as noble Lords may know, I was a retailer in my commercial life and the level of faith that one put in electronic point-of-sale equipment and the systems behind those front-facing things was, in the early days, at times ill-founded. One would think now that there are enough checks and balances within any form of automated stock control and management system that anything that does not look right would be flagged up—that is certainly my experience. I do not think that something as specific as what we have had to face through the Horizon scandal is likely nowadays with the advances in technology.
I will refer quickly to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I am entirely with the noble Lord; this is a deeply shameful situation. I have stood here before and talked about the way that the Post Office runs itself; I do not think anybody can be in any doubt as to what I think some of its commercial failings have been. We have to look only at the extraordinary situation around the bonus payment, which has now been fully repaid; the chief executive has paid back more than he had to—slightly too little, too late, in my view, but at least it is an acceptance of failure. The Government are acutely aware of those issues.
As for damages through the courts, that is really a question for the courts. As I understand it, the legal advice that you get when you make a claim through the court—I referred to this earlier—is such that it is always an estimate. I imagine that, for some, it is absolutely obvious that they will continue to go through the courts, whereas for others that is not the case. The fact that the Government will make up the difference is certainly an honourable way to address that.
The question of those dismissed but not prosecuted is something that we need to address. I am again surprised, as I imagine are a lot of people, by the amount of people who have not applied and put their names forward. However, on the group litigation order, as of 15 September, 461 registration forms had been received and 32 full claims. Seven offers had been made and accepted. It shows that all these different opportunities are starting to gain some traction. It would be nice if we could get through them as quickly as possible.
I think that is probably it, apart from the elephants in the room—Fujitsu and the Post Office. The Government are keen to get this out the way and settled, before we see where we stand with Fujitsu. It is a core participant in the inquiry. It must now know what went wrong; well, it certainly did before we knew. Once the independent inquiry is complete, I am sure there will be a robust conversation with Fujitsu and, no doubt, its insurers.
I might finish on that. This has been a horrifying experience for a large number of people—well over 2,500—and the Government continue to do what we can.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
I want to pursue that point. The noble Earl said that people have been contacted. How have they been contacted? Is it a letter? Is it a phone call? Have you knocked on the door? Have you gone back again? We need to know what that contact is, because if people are not coming forward from that contact, then it has failed. People need to know that we accept that a great injustice has been done to them and we want to sort it out. The noble Earl may not be able to answer the point now, so will he write to me and to other noble Lords in the House to say what the method of contact is and what they are going to do when they have not got a response?
Lord Fox (LD)
Before the Minister answers that, it is important to bring home and build on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. A strategy to communicate with certain communities is different from a strategy to communicate with the mainstream community. It involves community leaders, different media and different things. Do the Government have a proper media communication strategy of the sort that was just mentioned that involves using community leaders as intermediaries for those people to give them the confidence to step forward?
I talked about the Post Office being obfuscatory. Among the things it was obfuscatory about were appalling racial slurs that were used to characterise those people. At the heart of this is a racial element, and we should not forget that. Many of the people who were punished may well have been singled out because of their classification within that process. I think the Government owe it to them to double down on this communication.
The Earl of Minto (Con)
I entirely agree. The Government really do owe it to them to double down on it and I will find out exactly what the situation is. I know that telephone calls, letters, victim meetings and all sorts of things are going on, and it is extremely important that we get to the bottom of it. I will write to noble Lords with the details and let them know exactly how we are proceeding.