Post Office Mediation Scheme

Baroness Clark of Kilwinning Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Ms Dorries. I congratulate the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) on all his work on this issue and on securing what I understand is his first Adjournment debate. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and inform the House that I am the chair of the Communication Workers Union group of MPs. I have had a wide range of discussions with the CWU and in particular with the postmasters branch, which has had a number of its members affected by the issues raised today.

As has already been made clear in the debate so far, this issue has been ongoing for many years. I want to reiterate a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood): what has come across clearly to me in discussions with sub-postmasters and mistresses is denial from the Post Office that a problem exists. The experience of those directly affected is that, if a problem occurs in relation to the finances, the initial response from the Post Office is to blame the postmaster or mistress rather than to conduct a serious inquiry to see whether there is a fault in the system or to find out what has gone wrong. That is devastating for the individuals involved, who, as has already been shown, often face years of anguish as a result.

The Communication Workers Union is supporting a number of members who are waiting for their cases to be heard as part of the mediation service. Indeed, one of its members has been suspended without pay for more than a year as he waits for his case to be heard. For more than eight months, another has been facing increasing losses hanging over him despite ongoing involvement with Post Office technical staff who have come to see what the cause of the losses is and to try to find out why there are losses and whether there are gains.

The CWU gets involved with postmasters and postmistresses who are seeking help with the computer system on a regular basis. They are not necessarily being accused of anything, but they are having problems with the system. As workers, they find numerous problems with it, as has been highlighted in the debate.

The general point that comes through is that the support systems provided by the Post Office are inadequate. Wrong advice and assistance is regularly given by the help desks that are there to try to deal with such situations as they arise. Indeed, I have been informed that the technical help desk, which is crucial to identifying solutions when problems arise, is based in the Philippines. Therefore, as well as all the other issues when attempting to sort out technical problems, a significant problem is language difficulties. Will the Minister deal with that in her response? We have already heard in the debate about the job losses threatened and it is clear that the current support systems are inadequate.

The main concern that comes through from those directly affected is that there does not seem to be a fair and open process to deal with a postmaster or postmistress who it is believed might bear some kind of responsibility for a shortage in the accounts. The Communication Workers Union is regularly involved in such cases, even when they do not amount to the serious problems identified in earlier contributions to the debate.

The CWU postmasters branch informed me that it has seen the leaked report issued by the forensic investigator, Second Sight. Indeed, I understand that that report has been seen by many journalists and Members. One of the concerns is the lack of public scrutiny and the fact that these issues are not in the public domain. It seems that the contingent liabilities and the amounts of money involved over many years are significant. That is highlighted in the report and is not officially in the public domain. Indeed, it does not appear in any way in the annual reports and accounts that the Post Office has to publish.

There needs to be a much higher level of transparency because we are dealing with public money. The people whom I have spoken to who have experience of the system accept much of what is in the Second Sight report. Their view is that there is not one single fault with the system, but dozens and dozens of things that make up the problem when one steps back and considers the system as a whole. The major cultural problem we seem to have is that the initial response from the Post Office, despite everything that we have heard today and all the representations made over many years, is that the individual is responsible if there is an issue. I hope the Minister will look seriously at that cultural problem. It is clearly significant. No one is fully clear on exactly why there are all these problems in the system, but all the evidence is that this is an extremely significant issue. It is resulting in low morale among those working in the system, and I hope she will respond fully to the matter.