Post Office: Horizon Accounting System

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, I think we have dealt with both questions there.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, for continuing to press this issue doggedly over the last decade. Under the framework document, the Post Office business plan must address

“the state of the relationship … with the community of postmasters.”

The sole shareholder—the Government—is required to meet the CEO

“at least twice a year”.

Ministers have known all about this grotesque scandal. It is not good enough to hide behind the pretence that these matters were merely operational. At how many of those biannual meetings did the Minister pursue this? If he did not, surely that is negligence? If he did, why has it taken so long?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am not the Minister directly responsible for the Post Office; Paul Scully is the Minister who is directly responsible. He has regular meetings with the Post Office chief executive, and, indeed, I have also met him to discuss this matter. This scandal has been going on for the best part of a decade now, through successive Governments and Ministers. We are not trying to hide behind anything. That is why we have announced this inquiry with a High Court judge to try to get the bottom of these matters. It has been extensively looked at and the High Court opined on it, but we think that more can be done, and I assure the noble Lord that we want to see these matters properly examined and the appropriate blame apportioned.