Post Office: Horizon Compensation

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Again, I have considerable sympathy for the points that my noble friend makes, but, so far, Fujitsu has not been found guilty of any fraud or other crime related to this matter. It is co-operating in full with the inquiry, as we would expect of it. I realise that this is uncomfortable for the House, but we should wait for the results of the inquiry to set out in stark detail exactly where the failings were.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the tributes paid to my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot and Paul Scully in the other place, and with the congratulations offered to the Government on bringing forward payments at last, at least in many cases. The Statement talks about reimbursing “reasonable” costs of legal action. I understand that going forward, because we have to guard against egregious costs being imposed, but for those who have already had to take legal action, can my noble friend assure the House that there will be full recompense for all the legal expenses that they have had to go to, in addition to which there will be compensation for the suffering that they have clearly been through?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

If my noble friend is talking about the GLO legal action, of course the costs of that were funded and the lawyers were not paid by the litigants; a lot of the compensation went to pay the legal fees, which is part of the problem with the GLO scheme.