Post Office Board and Governance

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Thankfully, not me. I have nothing against Mr Staunton personally. He had a strong track record as the chair of various large organisations, as he said yesterday. I think we would all agree that the Post Office is a specific organisation with specific challenges. Yesterday’s evidence from Ben Tidswell, the senior independent director, was interesting. He felt that Mr Staunton’s behaviour changed in November last year and became far more “erratic”—his word. I do not know the reasons for that specifically, although Mr Tidswell suggested some yesterday. Whatever the reason, Mr Staunton’s recent conduct is not consistent with remaining chair of the Post Office. That is why we decided to act.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Ind)]

I thank the Minister for his work in this area. He has been assiduous in his attention to detail—I cannot say the same of the Secretary of State. Nevertheless, yesterday was unedifying, and we are sick to death of the “He said, she said” business—we are not interested, except that two witnesses yesterday took the oath and spoke to the same issue: as to whether Mr Read had ever tendered his resignation or threatened to. It was totally conflicting evidence from the two people; they both cannot be right, so I suggest that one might have been a little economical with the truth. From Dr Neil Hudgell, though, the message came loud and clear: these schemes are way too “over-engineered” and far too “bureaucratic”, and that has led to the delay in getting the money out of the door. I have to correct the Minister—only 20% of the fund is out of the door as yet. We have to speed it up.

Finally, I ask him to take on board the words of the predecessor Select Committee, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, in February 2022, which said that the best way through this was to remove the Post Office from the system. Now, it may be too late to do that, but my goodness, was not the Committee right to say that? Can we find ways to relegate the role of the Post Office, because that is the only way we will get justice for postmasters? Ultimately, that is what this is about—getting them compensated.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman’s final point, and a number of the points he made. It is fair to say that on the compensation schemes, we could use the old phrase, “If you were going there, you wouldn’t start from here.” I think that Sir Wyn Williams has said that, but the best way now is to say, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” We have to improve the schemes we have got. The hon. Gentleman made an interesting point about the Post Office, and he will have heard what I said earlier. I think the fixed-sum awards do take the Post Office out of the schemes completely, because no disclosure is required for them.

On tendering resignation—again, I thought it was extraordinary that a chair would disclose confidential and private conversations that he has had with the chief executive. I have to say for the record that Mr Read has never tendered his resignation to me or to the Secretary of State. Others would be better than me to comment on the nature of those conversations, but I do not think that it was right for Mr Staunton to comment at all.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State has given me 100% support in everything I have done in trying to address these matters. I accept what Neil Hudgell said—I spoke to him afterwards, and we have spoken before about the schemes being over-engineered—and he suggested some ways to try to accelerate compensation. We are of course looking at those to see what the best way is to ensure that they are not over-engineered, but deliver rapid and fair outcomes as quickly as possible.