Post Office Horizon: Compensation and Legislation

Debate between Lord Johnson of Lainston and Lord Bichard

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for those points. I was reminded of his making of history in an unprecedented and wholly unique way only a few years ago. I think he will agree that that was the right thing to do then and that this is the right thing to do now. It does not set a precedent; these are truly specific circumstances. I agree with him about the principle around the confessions. The excellent and important TV series powerfully demonstrated the relevance of this point; in a number of cases, people seem to have been given ultimatums to accept an admission of guilt for a lower level of penalty. It is right that this legislation, when it becomes an Act, will exonerate all those who fulfil these criteria.

I push back on the principle that each of the cases should be reviewed in the detail that the noble Lord suggested, because the whole point is that we want to move with a sense of pace. It has been widely reported—and, I am sure, discussed among everyone who has been following the case—that it is certainly possible that some people who have committed a crime will be exonerated. It is the Government’s view—I call on the legal experts in this House in saying this—that the clear uncertainty on which the evidence was based would impact the retrials. I would have assumed that, if there was a retrial for each case, the baselessness of the evidence being used would mean that, even if those people were guilty of committing a crime, they would probably be exonerated in many instances. It is not simply around the technical element of the necessity; it is the fact that we want to move fast, and we want to exonerate these people who are aging—in many instances, sadly, some have already passed away. It is the right thing to do, and it sends a very clear message that this country and our two legislative Chambers want to redress a significant wrong.

[Lord Bichard (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister said that this is unprecedented, which of course it is in many respects. However, we are seeing a number of examples at the moment of the state finding it very difficult to deal with its failures, so I wonder whether we can be reassured that some lessons are being learned. In May of this year, we will see the publication of the infected blood inquiry’s report, which will be devastating. It would be even more devastating if the victims of those events experience the same problems that we are debating today and that we have debated around Windrush and Grenfell. Can the House be reassured that discussions are taking place in government to ensure that that does not happen?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am genuinely grateful to the noble Lord for that point. I agree in many instances. Governments—or the state, as he rightly said; this is not party political or individually associated —and large bureaucratic machines find it difficult to accept fault. I think that there are fears of precedent-setting and financial conversations. Indeed, for those in the wrong, quite rightly there are the principles we are debating today—with significant cost to the citizenry of this country, as well as the reputational damage and other issues we have inflicted on the individuals, both those involved and those who have suffered the consequences.

Unquestionably, there will be—and rightly so—a significant discussion about how arm’s-length bodies of this nature are managed by government departments and Ministers, and how those Ministers are then called to account by Parliament. The issue, probably over the last 30 years or so, has been a culture of creating more and more arm’s-length bodies, the virtue of which seems to be their so-called independence. At a time when there should have been higher degrees of scrutiny, the culture was the issue, not necessarily the governance processes, because the governance is there in many instances. In the case of the Post Office, the Government is the only shareholder, so they were clearly in the line of slight; of course, the Post Office was also being heavily subsidised by the Government. In many instances, the structures are there, but the culture around the so-called ability for Ministers to interfere or take a greater degree of scrutiny, interest and responsibility has been reset. I think there is a significant view that a review of how those governance processes work in a cultural sense is absolutely right. We should be aware of the chilling power of bureaucratic indifference—we certainly are; it is something I take very seriously in my own role.