Social Media: Catfishing

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Brinton

Wednesday 30th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am of course happy to meet the gentleman the noble Baroness mentioned. We are open to all suggestions about how we can improve this legislation. None of this is 100% secure—we absolutely know that—and we know that, as technology is moving forward, we need to move forward too. It seems that the criminals are always one step ahead of us, so we need to catch up and make sure that we take all the appropriate action we can with the new technology that is being used. The noble Baroness also made an important point about education. Ofcom already has an important media literacy strategy that it is rolling out, and that includes education in schools and with young people. But we all have a responsibility—every parent has a responsibility to say to their child, “What you see on your social media platform may not be what you think you’re seeing”. We need to make sure that they are made aware of those dangers.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, Naomi Long, the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland, has said that Westminster’s legislation on online crimes, including catfishing, is not strong enough, particularly on unverified social media accounts. Worse, 87% of those who report online crime to the police get an immediate response of “no further action”. What will the Government do to ensure that police forces and the CPS have the right information to make sure that that appalling figure is reduced?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

We are working closely with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice on the implementation of the existing legislation because, as I say, a number of pieces of legislation are already on the statute book. Some capture fraud offences —I note the Fraud Act—and others capture online frauds, including romance frauds on dating apps and so on, which, sadly, are all too widespread. Those actions are being taken. We are talking about this to the Home Office, which is also on a learning curve in relation to how it can tackle these issues more robustly. We are carrying on our dialogue with it.

Post Office Horizon: Redress

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Brinton

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, about the Government’s Statement being very welcome and the attempt to try to unscramble some of the complexities of the scheme, but from these Benches too we are concerned about the low level of conclusion of cases, despite the process. I echo his questions about how this is being managed. Mindful that there are other inquiry redress processes that have hit problems and have had to repeatedly be redesigned, my first question to the Minister is to ask whether she is absolutely convinced that she has addressed all of them. I shall come on to a couple of specific points.

Chris Head, a former sub-postmaster who lost everything when he was wrongly accused of theft, has spoken up since the publication of the statements with some concerns, saying:

“The remit of the appeal process cannot be restricted to only those that produce new evidence. Many people have been materially disadvantaged by not having access to legal advice and interim payments that were only introduced in November 2022. This appeals mechanism must be available to everyone that has settled claims since the scheme launched in 2020 to ensure they are properly compensated back to a position they would have been in had the scandal not happened”.


Members of your Lordships’ House, including the Minister, I think, have repeatedly raised concerns about the difference between these various schemes for different sub-postmasters and staff. While it is good that the Government want to have an independent appeals process for the HSS, I remind her that the complex redress schemes arising out of other tragic scandals have had to be adapted. It took the work done on the Victims and Prisoners Act to create the infected blood compensation scheme earlier this year—with an enormous amount of energy—to untangle all the different parts of that redress scheme. Does the Minister recognise that Mr Head and others have valid concerns about inconsistencies between the schemes, and that trying to sort all this out now, at pace, as was done with the infected blood scheme, must be a priority?

I want to raise two other issues briefly. First, on the predecessor package to Horizon, known as Capture, I raised the issue of the postmasters and staff who lost their jobs because of Capture, some of whom were also prosecuted but many of whom were sacked. The Independent newspaper and ITN have given voice to these victims. When will the Government’s own investigation into Capture be published and when will they update your Lordships’ House on its findings? Should redress be due, will it be incorporated into the existing postmasters’ scheme, or will there have to be a brand-new one?

Finally, in July, my noble friend Lord Fox raised again the issue of those not included in the overturning of convictions because they had appealed their cases and lost in the Appeal Court. Both he and I had helpful discussions with the previous Minister. The concern was expressed that the judiciary, in particular, had felt it was wrong for this group of victims to have their cases overturned under the legislation in the summer, because there was some merit to other parts of the cases brought against them. Yet, that question was not asked of any other case whatever, only those that went to appeal. Are the Government prepared to reconsider that? What now exists in the redress scheme is a small group of people who have to have an exceptionally high bar of going to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, hoping that it will refer their cases back to the Court of Appeal. This seems unfair and particularly long term, which means these victims will not get resolution for a long time to come.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lords for raising these points on what is clearly a very important issue. I have to say that it upsets me greatly to hear of the harrowing experiences postmasters faced over so many years. I understand and have the utmost respect for their wish for full, fair, speedy redress, for answers from the inquiry about what went wrong and for people to be properly held to account for what has happened. This scandal represents one of the biggest miscarriages of justice of our time, and it is crucial that we get redress for those affected as quickly as possible. This is what we are focusing on as a Government—fair and timely redress for postmasters—and we will continue to work with and support the Post Office Horizon inquiry as it carries out its vital work in establishing the facts about what went wrong in this scandal.

Before I turn to the specific questions raised, I pay tribute to the tireless campaigning of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, to all the many postmasters who have championed this cause and to Sir Alan Bates and Lady Suzanne, whom I congratulate on their recent wedding. I also thank members of the advisory board, including the noble Lords, Lord Beamish and Lord Arbuthnot, who are members of the Horizon advisory board. I thank them for their advocacy for postmasters affected by the scandal over many years and for their hard work in helping the Government improve the delivery of redress. We shall continue to listen to their advice.

Turning to the subject in hand and the questions the noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked, we will look to establish the new Horizon shortfall scheme appeal process announced yesterday as quickly as possible. Postmasters’ stories are harrowing, but their resilience and steadfastness in seeking justice are inspiring. The Government’s priority is ensuring that the victims of the scandal receive the redress they deserve. We want to help bring some closure to postmasters as soon as we can. I cannot give an exact timeline today, but it is likely that it will be launched in the new year. We will keep postmasters updated on its development.

I can reassure noble Lords that legal advice will be available from the outset for those who enter the appeals process. We want the appeals process to be available to all those who are not satisfied that they received the correct amount of compensation. As in the case of the broader design of the process, we will engage with postmasters and the advisory board on the detailed approach before agreeing and setting out in due course details on eligibility criteria.

The appeals process is intended to support, in particular, those who have settled their claim but feel that they were unable to set it out in full in their initial application. There are a variety of reasons why postmasters may have been unable to do so, and these will be considered when designing the process and its eligibility criteria. It will also be open to more recent applicants who have not yet settled and are unhappy with the offer they have received from the Post Office. However, on the specific question from the noble Lord, those who have accepted £75,000 are not eligible for an appeal. They were told this at the outset, when they accepted the payment.

The Government are committed to ensuring that we support postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal to get the redress they deserve. We plan to continue to work in a cross-party way on this important national priority, which of course was highlighted so well by the ITV drama “Mr Bates vs. The Post Office” earlier this year, and in last night’s follow-up documentary.

The noble Baroness asked about the investigation into the Capture software. We expect to receive this report shortly, and the conclusion of this exercise will support the Government in determining whether postmasters faced detriment due to the Capture system and what steps should be taken based on the conclusions of the investigation.

The noble Lord asked how many payments have been made for the Horizon convictions redress scheme. As of 30 August, we have made six interim payments totalling £1.2 million. As of 6 September, 178 letters have been issued by the MoJ. On the issue of the MoJ letters, as the Secretary of the State said yesterday, the state of the records has, sadly, delayed the process. This is a real frustration, but I hope that noble Lords will understand that, after everything people have been through, we should not take the risk of sending out a letter incorrectly. The Government are grateful for the support of the HSS appeals mechanism.

To all those who think that this is not moving fast enough, I can reassure them that we are moving at speed on this issue. There are a huge number of technical and legal issues that we are still ironing out, but we understand the need to move and resolve these issues at speed.

In response to the noble Lord’s point about cultural issues, I agree they are important, and I hope they will come out in the final phase of Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry. Hopefully, we can follow it up and act on it.